Local
Jury rejects hate crime charge in gay murder
Defendant found guilty of slaying victim in bedroom
A D.C. Superior Court jury on Tuesday found District resident Justin L. Navarro, 25, guilty of first-degree murder while armed for stabbing a gay man at least 15 times in the back seconds after police said he referred to the victim as a “faggot.”
But the jury declined a request by prosecutors that it designate the Nov. 6, 2009 murder of District resident Kevin Massey, 31, as an anti-gay hate crime.
“The U.S. Attorney’s office had charged the defendant with committing this murder because of Mr. Massey’s sexual orientation, but the jury did not make that finding beyond a reasonable doubt,” the office said in a statement.
In addition to handing down a first-degree murder conviction, the jury found Navarro guilty of obstruction of justice, tampering with evidence, and carrying a dangerous weapon. He faces a minimum sentence of 30 years in prison and a maximum sentence of life in prison.
“This murder was marked by an unspeakable brutality,” said U.S. Attorney Ronald C. Machen Jr. “Today’s first-degree murder conviction ensures that the defendant will be held accountable for this senseless and deplorable act of violence.”
Machen told the Blade his office couldn’t discuss certain specifics, such as the jury’s decision not to convict on the hate crime charge, prior to sentencing, which is scheduled for May 24.
A law enforcement source said juries sometimes find it difficult to grapple with bias-related charges in criminal cases because it’s hard to prove beyond a reasonable doubt whether a defendant used bias or hatred as his or her motive in committing a crime.
D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier said the department is committed to “fully investigate” hate crimes.
“In this case, MPD investigators worked diligently with the United States Attorney’s office to gather all of the facts that were available,” Lanier said. “It is unfortunate that the jury did not find in favor of the hate bias enhancement.”
The verdict in the case came two days after Machen and D.C. police officials joined LGBT activists in speaking at a community forum on anti-gay hate crimes hosted by Foundry United Methodist Church near Dupont Circle.
Machen told forum participants about his office’s prosecution of Antwan Holcomb, 21, who was convicted March 1 by a D.C. Superior Court jury of first-degree murder while armed in the December 2009 murder of gay District resident Anthony Perkins. Witnesses testified that Holcomb was overheard boasting about meeting Perkins on a gay telephone chat line and luring him to a secluded spot in Southeast D.C., where he shot him in the head inside Perkins’ car.
Machen told the forum his office considered but ruled out charging Holcomb with a hate crime in connection with the Perkins murder.
A statement released by the U.S. Attorney’s office said witnesses testified during Navarro’s week-long trial that he became angry at Massey about a month before the murder when people saw someone carry him out of the apartment building where Massey lived while his pants were falling down.
The statement says witnesses saw Massey lean over to “pull up the defendant’s pants for him” while teenagers began laughing at Navarro. Some of the teens began teasing Navarro by “saying Mr. Massey was going to make the defendant ‘his next bitch,’” the U.S. Attorney’s office statement says.
The statement says witnesses reported that Navarro turned toward Massey and gave him the “evil eye.”
A source familiar with the case said the building where Massey lived was known as a place where illegal drugs were sold and sometimes used. The source said Navarro was being carried out of the building with his pants falling because he was highly impaired due to alleged drug use and apparently was unable to walk.
According to the statement, during the following month, Navarro became the target of rumors questioning his sexual orientation. It says that on at least one occasion he was overheard “loudly denying the rumors and vowing to kill Mr. Massey.”
On Nov. 6, 2009, Navarro knocked on the door of Massey’s apartment at 4211 2nd St., N.W., and asked, “Where’s the faggot,” the statement says. It says someone answered the door and told Navarro that Massey was in the bedroom.
The statement says witnesses reported that Navarro then went into the kitchen, grabbed a “large butcher knife,” walked into the bedroom and “without any warning began stabbing Mr. Massey repeatedly.”
It says Massey died on the scene. An autopsy later revealed that he had been stabbed between 18 and 20 times, including 15 times in the back.
“In the days that followed, the defendant threatened witnesses, burned his clothes, and told relatives he would not be around for a while,” the statement says. “Five days after the murder, the Capital Area Regional Fugitive Task Force arrested the defendant in a hotel room in Southwest D.C.,” the statement says.
The statement says that during his trial, Navarro testified that he acted in self-defense, saying “he did not know Mr. Massey and that Mr. Massey attacked him for no apparent reason.”
Says the statement, “The defendant testified that he believed Mr. Massey was either going to kill him or rape him.”
Attempts to reach Navarro’s court appointed attorney, Nathan I. Silver II, for comment were unsuccessful.
A.J. Singletary, chair of Gays & Lesbians Opposing Violence, said the group appreciates the U.S. Attorney’s office’s decision to charge Navarro with a hate crime in the Massey murder.
“As this case shows, it is ultimately up to the jury in the end, but it’s important to fiercely prosecute these cases to stem the growing level of hate in our community,” Singletary said.
He said GLOV will write a community impact statement to be submitted to the judge prior to Navarro’s sentencing that “conveys the effects of this crime on the LGBT community.”
Singletary also noted that Navarro, with the help of his attorney, sought to use a form of the so-called “gay panic defense” in the case.
In past cases, attorneys representing defendants charged with killing gay men have invoked the gay panic defense to persuade juries that their client lost control of his actions due to a fear of homosexuality and lashed out and killed the victim in a state of temporary insanity.
Gay rights attorneys have pointed to evidence showing that some defendants using this defense sought out and targeted gay victims for and assault and robbery and invoked the gay panic defense after being caught.
“We all must be vigilant to make sure that nothing remotely close to a gay panic defense is seriously considered, or worse, upheld in court,” Singletary said. “Police and prosecutors must always be skeptical when they hear the gay panic defense, which as this case shows, is prevalent and dangerous.”
District of Columbia
‘Sandwich guy’ not guilty in assault case
Sean Charles Dunn faced misdemeanor charge
A jury with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Thursday, Nov. 6, found D.C. resident Sean Charles Dunn not guilty of assault for tossing a hero sandwich into the chest of a U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent at the intersection of 14th and U streets, N.W. at around 11 p.m. on Aug. 10.
Dunn’s attorneys hailed the verdict as a gesture of support for Dunn’s contention that his action, which was captured on video that went viral on social media, was an exercise of his First Amendment right to protest the federal border agent’s participating in President Donald Trump’s deployment of federal troops on D.C. streets.
Friends of Dunn have said that shortly before the sandwich tossing incident took place Dunn had been at the nearby gay nightclub Bunker, which was hosting a Latin dance party called Tropicoqueta. Sabrina Shroff, one of three attorneys representing Dunn at the trial, said during the trial after Dunn left the nightclub he went to the submarine sandwich shop on 14th Street at the corner of U Street, where he saw the border patrol agent and other law enforcement officers standing in front of the shop.
Shroff and others who know Dunn have said he was fearful that the border agent outside the sub shop and immigrant agents might raid the Bunker Latin night event. Bunker’s entrance is on U Street just around the corner from the sub shop where the federal agents were standing.
“I am so happy that justice prevails in spite of everything happening,“ Dunn told reporters outside the courthouse after the verdict while joined by his attorneys. “And that night I believed that I was protecting the rights of immigrants,” he said.
“And let us not forget that the great seal of the United States says, E Pluribus Unum,” he continued. “That means from many, one. Every life matters no matter where you came from, no matter how you got here, no matter how you identify, you have the right to live a life that is free.”
The verdict followed a two-day trial with testimony by just two witnesses, U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent Gregory Lairmore, who identified Dunn as the person who threw the sandwich at his chest, and Metro Transit Police Detective Daina Henry, who told the jury she witnessed Dunn toss the sandwich at Lairmore while shouting obscenities.
Shroff told the jury Dunn was exercising his First Amendment right to protest and that the tossing of the sandwich at Lairmore, who was wearing a bulletproof vest, did not constitute an assault under the federal assault law to which Dunn was charged, among other things, because the federal agent was not injured.
Prosecutors with the Office of the U.S. Attorney for D.C. initially attempted to obtain a grand jury indictment of Dunn on a felony assault charge. But the grand jury refused to hand down an indictment on that charge, court records show. Prosecutors then filed a criminal complaint against Dunn on the misdemeanor charge of assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers of the United States.
“Dunn stood within inches of Victim 1,” the criminal complaint states, “pointing his finger in Victim 1’s face, and yelled, Fuck you! You fucking fascists! Why are you here? I don’t want you in my city!”
The complaint continues by stating, “An Instagram video recorded by an observer captured the incident. The video depicts Dunn screaming at V-1 within inches of his face for several seconds before winding his arm back and forcefully throwing a sub-style sandwich at V-1.
Prosecutors repeatedly played the video of the incident for the jurors on video screens in the courtroom.
Dunn, who chose not to testify at his trial, and his attorneys have not disputed the obvious evidence that Dunn threw the sandwich that hit Lairmore in the chest. Lead defense attorney Shroff and co-defense attorneys Julia Gatto and Nicholas Silverman argued that Dunn’s action did not constitute an assault under the legal definition of common law assault in the federal assault statute.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael DiLorenzo, the lead prosecutor in the case, strongly disputed that claim, citing various provisions in the law and appeals court rulings that he claimed upheld his and the government’s contention that an “assault” can take place even if a victim is not injured as well as if there was no physical contact between the victim and an alleged assailant, only a threat of physical contact and injury.
The dispute over the intricacies of the assault law and whether Dunn’s action reached the level of an assault under the law dominated the two-day trial, with U.S. District Court Judge Carl J. Nichols, who presided over the trial, weighing in with his own interpretation of the assault statute. Among other things, he said it would be up to the jury to decide whether or not Dunn committed an assault.
Court observers have said in cases like this, a jury could have issued a so-called “nullification” verdict in which they acquit a defendant even though they believe he or she committed the offense in question because they believe the charge is unjust. The other possibility, observers say, is the jury believed the defense was right in claiming a law was not violated.
DiLorenzo and his two co-prosecutors in the case declined to comment in response to requests by reporters following the verdict.
“We really want to thank the jury for having sent back an affirmation that his sentiment is not just tolerated but it is legal, it is welcome,” defense attorney Shroff said in referring to Dunn’s actions. “And we thank them very much for that verdict,” she said.
Dunn thanked his attorneys for providing what he called excellent representation “and for offering all of their services pro bono,” meaning free of charge.
Dunn, an Air Force veteran who later worked as an international affairs specialist at the U.S. Department of Justice, was fired from that job by DOJ officials after his arrest for the sandwich tossing incident.
“I would like to thank family and friends and strangers for all of their support, whether it was emotional, or spiritual, or artistic, or financial,” he told the gathering outside the courthouse. “To the people that opened their hearts and homes to me, I am eternally grateful.”
“As always, we accept a jury’s verdict; that is the system within which we function,” CNN quoted U.S. Attorney for D.C. Jeanine Pirro as saying after the verdict in the Dunn case. “However, law enforcement should never be subjected to assault, no matter how ‘minor,’” Pirro told CNN in a statement.
“Even children know when they are angry, they are not allowed to throw objects at one another,” CNN quoted her as saying.
Maryland
Democrats hold leads in almost every race of Annapolis municipal election
Jared Littmann ahead in mayor’s race.
By CODY BOTELER | The Democratic candidates in the Annapolis election held early leads in the races for mayor and nearly every city council seat, according to unofficial results released on election night.
Jared Littmann, a former alderman and the owner of K&B Ace Hardware, did not go so far as to declare victory in his race to be the next mayor of Annapolis, but said he’s optimistic that the mail-in ballots to be counted later this week will support his lead.
Littmannn said November and December will “fly by” as he plans to meet with the city department heads and chiefs to “pepper them with questions.”
The rest of this article can be read on the Baltimore Banner’s website.
Democrats on Tuesday increased their majority in the Virginia House of Delegates.
The Associated Press notes the party now has 61 seats in the chamber. Democrats before Election Day had a 51-48 majority in the House.
All six openly gay, lesbian, and bisexual candidates — state Dels. Rozia Henson (D-Prince William County), Laura Jane Cohen (D-Fairfax County), Joshua Cole (D-Fredericksburg), Marcia Price (D-Newport News), Adele McClure (D-Arlington County), and Mark Sickles (D-Fairfax County) — won re-election.
Lindsey Dougherty, a bisexual Democrat, defeated state Del. Carrie Coyner (R-Chesterfield County) in House District 75 that includes portions of Chesterfield and Prince George Counties. (Attorney General-elect Jay Jones in 2022 texted Coyner about a scenario in which he shot former House Speaker Todd Gilbert, a Republican.)
Other notable election results include Democrat John McAuliff defeating state Del. Geary Higgins (R-Loudoun County) in House District 30. Former state Del. Elizabeth Guzmán beat state Del. Ian Lovejoy (R-Prince William County) in House District 22.
Democrats increased their majority in the House on the same night they won all three statewide offices: governor, lieutenant governor, and attorney general.
Narissa Rahaman is the executive director of Equality Virginia Advocates, the advocacy branch of Equality Virginia, a statewide LGBTQ advocacy group, last week noted the election results will determine the future of LGBTQ rights, reproductive freedom, and voting rights in the state.
Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin in 2024 signed a bill that codified marriage equality in state law.
The General Assembly earlier this year approved a resolution that seeks to repeal the Marshall-Newman Amendment that defines marriage in the state constitution as between a man and a woman. The resolution must pass in two successive legislatures before it can go to the ballot.
Shreya Jyotishi contributed to this article.
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District of Columbia2 days ago‘Sandwich guy’ not guilty in assault case
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