Lawyer Claims Defendant in Hate Crime is Gay Too

So said the lawyer for Anthony Fortunato, 21, one of four men accused of chasing a gay man to his death on the Belt Parkway during a robbery on Oct. 8, 2006.
All along, homosexuality has defined the case. Prosecutors have used it as a sword, seeking heavier sentences for a hate crime.
As the trial began in Brooklyn Supreme Court yesterday, Mr. Fortunato’s lawyer, Gerald J. Di Chiara, sought to use sexual orientation as a shield. Without much explanation of how he planned to introduce this fact or turn it to his advantage, Mr. Di Chiara offered it to the jury in his opening argument. Not only was Mr. Fortunato gay, Mr. Di Chiara said, but so was the main prosecution witness, Gary Timmins, 17, who has pleaded guilty to attempted robbery in exchange for his testimony.
In fact, Mr. Di Chiara continued, Mr. Fortunato had planned to tell his friends of his sexual orientation on the night in question. Luring a gay man out to a secluded lot in Sheepshead Bay was part of that plan, Mr. Di Chiara said.
The melodramatic turn temporarily obscured the darker nature of the case. Last Oct. 8, prosecutors said, a 29-year-old designer named Michael J. Sandy was lured from his home in Williamsburg to his death.
“He was preyed upon by four young men who decided to rob him,” Assistant District Attorney Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi said in her opening statement. By her account, Mr. Fortunato found and contacted Mr. Sandy through a gay Web site.
“In his words,” Ms. Nicolazzi said, “ ‘The gay guys would always come, and it would be easy.’ ”
Mr. Fortunato and a co-defendant, John Fox, 20, met Mr. Sandy in the parking lot, Ms. Nicolazzi said. Expecting only one man, Mr. Sandy drove away. But within hours, he resumed the online chat and returned to the lot.
This time, Ms. Nicolazzi said, Mr. Fox approached the car alone. He directed Mr. Sandy a short distance to Plumb Beach, a strip of sand between the highway and the Dead Horse Inlet reputed as a meeting place for sex.
From behind the dunes, three other young men ran out to attack Mr. Sandy. One of them, Ilya Shurov, 21, punched him in the face, she said. Twice, Mr. Sandy broke free, but his attackers chased him into the three eastbound lanes of the Belt Parkway, Ms. Nicolazzi said. He was struck by a car and died of his injuries five days later.
The police traced the defendants through the online screen name. Prosecutors offered the youngest, Mr. Timmins, a sentence of four years in exchange for his testimony.
The three other men were charged with murder as a hate crime, a distinction that can draw a longer sentence. They also were charged with felony murder, a count requiring prosecutors to prove that the killing took place during a robbery.
In their opening statements, defense lawyers argued that no robbery had taken place.
“He’s innocent of these charges,” said John D. Patten, a lawyer for Mr. Fox. “John Fox, as he sits here today, is not a murderer, has never been a murderer and never will be a murderer.”
Rather than a robbery, Mr. Patten argued, the luring of Mr. Sandy was better described as the crime of larceny by trick. The defendants intended to invite Mr. Sandy to smoke marijuana, ask for money to buy the drugs, then leave. The violent attack by Mr. Shurov, he said, was not anticipated by the other defendants.
Unlike robbery, larceny by trick is not an element of felony murder. The notion of a robbery, Mr. Patten said, was concocted after the fact by the prosecutors and investigators.
Mr. Fortunato’s lawyer made much the same argument, adding a twist by declaring his client’s homosexuality. Outside the courtroom, he sought to explain his theory, to a certain extent.
Mr. Fortunato, he said, might have planned to smoke marijuana with Mr. Sandy as a means of testing his friends’ sentiments about homosexuality. Or, he said, perhaps Mr. Fortunato had wanted to swindle a gay man, to see how his friends reacted to a gay person. Or, he said, perhaps Mr. Fortunato had simply wanted to rob somebody.
Beyond that, Mr. Di Chiara kept the defense strategy to himself. Asked how all this would help his case, he said, “You got to read the whole book.”

Jones Returns 5 Medals From Sydney Games

Jones Returns 5 Medals From Sydney Games
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By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: October 8, 2007
Filed at 6:59 p.m. ET

Marion Jones has given up the five medals she won at the Sydney Olympics, days after admitting she used performance-enhancing drugs. It wasn't immediately clear where the medals are now. Jones' lawyer, Henry DePippo, said Monday that she had relinquished them, but declined to say who had possession of them.

The normal protocol would be for Jones to give them to the U.S. Olympic Committee, which then would return them to the International Olympic Committee, said Giselle Davies, IOC spokeswoman.

''The IOC wants to move forward as quickly as possible in getting the facts and sorting out all the issues from the BALCO case,'' Davies said.

A call to the USOC was not immediately returned, but the group has scheduled a 7 p.m. EDT news conference. No one answered the door at Jones' house in Austin, Texas.

She pleaded guilty Friday to lying to federal investigators about using steroids, saying she'd taken ''the clear'' from September 2000 to July 2001. ''The clear'' is the designer steroid that's been linked to the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative, the lab at the center of the steroids scandal in professional sports.

It wasn't immediately clear what will happen next. The IOC and other sports bodies can go back eight years to strip medals and nullify results. In Jones' case, that would include the 2000 Olympics, where she won gold in the 100 meters, 200 meters and 1,600 relay and bronze in the long jump and 400 relay.

The standings normally would be readjusted, with the second-place finisher moving up to gold, third to silver and fourth to bronze.

Pauline Davis-Thompson of the Bahamas was the silver medalist in the 200 meters, and Tatiana Kotova of Russia was fourth in the long jump. The silver medalist in the 100 meters in Sydney was Greek sprinter Katerina Thanou -- at the center of a major doping scandal at the Athens Olympics.

She and fellow Greek runner Kostas Kenteris failed to show up for drug tests on the eve of the games, claimed they were injured in a motorcycle accident and eventually pulled out. Both later were suspended for two years.

The relays could be a trickier issue, because there are more people involved. Jearl Miles-Clark, Monique Hennagan, Tasha Colander-Richardson and Andrea Anderson all won golds as part of the 1,600-meter relay. Jamaica finished second.

Chryste Gaines, Torri Edwards, Nanceen Perry and Passion Richardson were on the 400-meter relay, which finished third ahead of France.

Jones stands to lose more than her Olympic medals, too. The International Association of Athletics Federations can strip athletes of results and medals after notification of a doping violation, and it said last week it was waiting to hear from the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency. Jones won a gold (100 meters) and bronze (long jump) at the 1999 worlds in Seville, Spain, and two gold (200 and 400 relay) and a silver (100) at the 2001 championships in Edmonton.

IAAF rules also allow for athletes busted for doping to be asked to pay back prize money and appearance fees. British sprinter Dwain Chambers, who admitted using the clear, had to pay back a reported $230,615 before he was allowed to return to competition after a two-year ban.

It's unclear whether this would be applied to Jones, who would have earned millions in prizes, bonuses and fees from meets all over the world, including a share of the $1 million Golden League jackpot in 2001 and 2002.

Jones had been dogged by suspicions and doping allegations for years, angrily denying all of them. On Friday, though, she told a federal judge that then-coach Trevor Graham gave her a substance that he said was flaxseed oil but was actually ''the clear.''

''By November 2003, I realized he was giving me performance-enhancing drugs,'' Jones said Friday.

------

AP Sports Writers Stephen Wilson in London and Rachel Cohen in New York, and Associated Press Writer April Castro in Austin, Texas, contributed to this report.

West Virginia Rape

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