Charges Dropped Against Two Suspects In Anti-Gay Attack In Bronx; The Two Are Now Classified As Victims Of The Torturous Assaults

The Associated Press reports that “Members of a street gang who attacked a gay man and a recruit because they believed the two had a sexual encounter also turned on two of their own during the rampage, according to newly released court documents that say a pair of teens initially charged in the case were actually victims.” Bryan Almonte and Brian Cepeda, both 17 years old, were arrested along with nine others after the October 3rd attack, however charges were later dropped against those two, along with two other, reducing the total number of defendants to seven. According to an indictment released Wednesday, five of those seven remaining defendants charged with third-degree assault as a hate crime for attacking Almonte, and charged with menacing as a hate crime for threatening Cepeda with a pair of pliers. Investigators now say that the group of men calling themselves the Latin King Goonies discovered that one of their recruits, a 17 year old, was gay, and they beat and sodomized him at an abandoned building. Later that day, gang members told a 30 year old man that he was invited to a party at that building, however when he arrived he was attacked –tied to a chair, beaten, burned, sodomized with a miniature baseball bat, and tortured. Six of the seven remaining defendants have pleaded not guilty to 75 charges that includes assault, sexual abuse, and unlawful imprisonment, all as hate crimes. Attorneys and family members argue they are innocent and that they are not a part of a gang, adding that the suspects have been silenced, and that the 30 year old victim was soliciting the boys for sex.