Local
Man charged in Tony Hunter death back in jail
Robert Hannah arrested for alleged assault, drug possession
Robert Hanna. (Washington Blade file photo)
D.C. resident Robert Hannah, 20, who served six months in jail in connection with the Hunter case, was being held in jail this week for an arrest last month for allegedly assaulting his girlfriend.
The United States Attorney’s office asked a D.C. Superior Court judge to hold Hannah in custody on a misdemeanor assault charge, which it listed as an incident of domestic violence, following Hannah’s arrest earlier this year on a separate charge of possession of marijuana.
Hannah was scheduled to appear in court on Thursday for a status hearing. A judge was expected to decide whether he should continue to be held or be released while awaiting trial on the assault charge.
His latest arrests drew the attention of LGBT activists, who expressed outrage in July 2009 when a grand jury lowered the charge against Hannah from manslaughter to misdemeanor simple assault for his role in Hunter’s death.
Prosecutors with the U.S. Attorney’s office said they could not support a manslaughter charge, let alone a first or second-degree murder charge against Hannah, because the evidence in the case didn’t support those charges.
Police and prosecutors stated in court papers that Hannah punched Hunter in the face as the two crossed paths on the street. They said the “altercation” occurred while Hunter and a friend were walking from their car to BeBar, a gay bar on 9th Street, N.W. near the D.C. Convention Center that has since closed.
According to court records, Hannah told police at the time he was arrested in the case that he punched Hunter in self-defense after Hunter touched his crotch and buttocks in a sexually suggestive way. A witness on the scene backed up Hannah’s claim of being groped, the police report said.
However, a friend of Hunter, who said he was walking with Hunter at the time of the assault, said Hunter never touched Hannah and that Hannah and two or three other men assaulted him and Hunter in an unprovoked attack.
For nearly a year, LGBT activists criticized police and prosecutors for appearing to accept Hannah’s version of what happened. They said Hannah appeared to be invoking the so-called “gay panic” defense, in which criminals who attack gay men claim to have been sexually propositioned as an alibi.
Hannah, then 18, accepted an offer by the U.S. Attorney’s office to plead guilty to the simple assault charge. A judge later sentenced him to the maximum penalty of six months in jail for that charge.
Shortly before the sentencing, the U.S. Attorney’s office released a 14-page sentencing memorandum explaining its decision against pursuing charges of murder or manslaughter against Hannah. Among other things, the document noted that an autopsy found that Hunter was intoxicated at the time of the assault. It said the D.C. medical examiner found that a facial injury that Hunter received from being punched by Hannah was superficial and did not seriously injure him.
According to the police and medical examiner’s report, Hunter fell against a fence after being punched and stood up on his own before losing his balance and falling backwards to the ground, hitting his head on the pavement. The force of his head hitting the pavement caused a fatal brain injury that led to his death, the medical examiner concluded.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Kevin Flynn, who prosecuted the case against Hannah, told a November 2009 community meeting organized by the local group Gays and Lesbians Opposing Violence (GLOV) that the medical examiner’s report would have been used by the defense in a trial. Flynn said a jury would almost certainly have found Hannah not guilty of murder or manslaughter based on that evidence, especially the medical examiner’s assertion that Hunter’s intoxication from alcohol contributed to a loss of balance that led to his fall to the pavement.
Flynn stated in the sentencing memorandum that Hunter’s friend, who claimed the attack by Hannah was unprovoked, gave a series of conflicting statements to police that raised serious questions about his reliability as a witness had the case gone to trial.
GLOV official Christopher Farris disputes Flynn’s claim that the friend was unreliable, saying conflicting statements about a traumatic event that led to Hunter’s death shouldn’t be dismissed and could have been helpful at a trial. Farris questioned the U.S. Attorney’s office and D.C. police for failing to more aggressively pursue leads to determine whether Hannah and others who were with him targeted Hunter as a gay man.
Residents in nearby neighborhoods knew gays were arriving and leaving the area to patronize BeBar, which was well known as a gay club, Farris and other activists said.
Shaw neighborhood activist Ricky Williams, who alerted activists and the media about Hannah’s latest arrests through a series of e-mails, called on the U.S. Attorney’s office to vigorously prosecute Hannah in the current two cases.
“There is no reason why a man thrice charged with violent crimes should be able to walk the streets of my neighborhood as if nothing ever happened,” he said in one e-mail. “How many more people must suffer before anyone does anything about Mr. Hannah?”
Assistant U.S. Attorney Roger Kemp, who is prosecuting Hannah in the current two cases, called on community members to submit to the court community impact statements at the appropriate time to explain how Hannah may have had a negative impact on the community.
William Miller, a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s office, said community impact statements are submitted only if and when a defendant is convicted of a crime and is about to be sentenced by a judge.
“If he is convicted, the statements would be helpful in advance of sentencing, giving the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the court additional information that could be useful,” Miller told the Blade. “Of course, all defendants are presumed innocent until, and unless, proven guilty.”
Virginia
Gay Va. State Sen. Ebbin resigns for role in Spanberger administration
Veteran lawmaker will step down in February
Alexandria Democrat Adam Ebbin, who has served as an openly gay member of the Virginia Legislature since 2004, announced on Jan. 7 that he is resigning from his seat in the State Senate to take a job in the administration of Gov.-Elect Abigail Spanberger.
Since 2012, Ebbin has been a member of the Virginia Senate for the 39th District representing parts of Alexandria, Arlington, and Fairfax counties. He served in the Virginia House of Delegates representing Alexandria from 2004 to 2012, becoming the state’s first out gay lawmaker.
His announcement says he submitted his resignation from his Senate position effective Feb. 18 to join the Spanberger administration as a senior adviser at the Virginia Cannabis Control Authority.
“I’m grateful to have the benefit of Senator Ebbin’s policy expertise continuing to serve the people of Virginia, and I look forward to working with him to prioritize public safety and public health,” Spanberger said in Ebbin’s announcement statement.
She was referring to the lead role Ebbin has played in the Virginia Legislature’s approval in 2020 of legislation decriminalizing marijuana and the subsequent approval in 2021of a bill legalizing recreational use and possession of marijuana for adults 21 years of age and older. But the Virginia Legislature has yet to pass legislation facilitating the retail sale of marijuana for recreational use and limits sales to purchases at licensed medical marijuana dispensaries.
“I share Governor-elect Spanberger’s goal that adults 21 and over who choose to use cannabis, and those who use it for medical treatment, have access to a well-tested, accurately labeled product, free from contamination,” Ebbin said in his statement. “2026 is the year we will move cannabis sales off the street corner and behind the age-verified counter,” he said.
Maryland
Steny Hoyer, the longest-serving House Democrat, to retire from Congress
Md. congressman served for years in party leadership
By ASSOCIATED PRESS and LISA MASCARO | Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland, the longest-serving Democrat in Congress and once a rival to become House speaker, will announce Thursday he is set to retire at the end of his term.
Hoyer, who served for years in party leadership and helped steer Democrats through some of their most significant legislative victories, is set to deliver a House floor speech about his decision, according to a person familiar with the situation and granted anonymity to discuss it.
“Tune in,” Hoyer said on social media. He confirmed his retirement plans in an interview with the Washington Post.
The rest of this article can be found on the Baltimore Banner’s website.
District of Columbia
Kennedy Center renaming triggers backlash
Artists who cancel shows threatened; calls for funding boycott grow
Efforts to rename the Kennedy Center to add President Trump’s name to the D.C. arts institution continue to spark backlash.
A new petition from Qommittee , a national network of drag artists and allies led by survivors of hate crimes, calls on Kennedy Center donors to suspend funding to the center until “artistic independence is restored, and to redirect support to banned or censored artists.”
“While Trump won’t back down, the donors who contribute nearly $100 million annually to the Kennedy Center can afford to take a stand,” the petition reads. “Money talks. When donors fund censorship, they don’t just harm one institution – they tell marginalized communities their stories don’t deserve to be told.”
The petition can be found here.
Meanwhile, a decision by several prominent musicians and jazz performers to cancel their shows at the recently renamed Trump-Kennedy Center in D.C. planned for Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve has drawn the ire of the Center’s president, Richard Grenell.
Grenell, a gay supporter of President Donald Trump who served as U.S. ambassador to Germany during Trump’s first term as president, was named Kennedy Center president last year by its board of directors that had been appointed by Trump.
Last month the board voted to change the official name of the center from the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center For The Performing Arts to the Donald J. Trump And The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center For The Performing Arts. The revised name has been installed on the outside wall of the center’s building but is not official because any name change would require congressional action.
According to a report by the New York Times, Grenell informed jazz musician Chuck Redd, who cancelled a 2025 Christmas Eve concert that he has hosted at the Kennedy Center for nearly 20 years in response to the name change, that Grenell planned to arrange for the center to file a lawsuit against him for the cancellation.
“Your decision to withdraw at the last moment — explicitly in response to the Center’s recent renaming, which honors President Trump’s extraordinary efforts to save this national treasure — is classic intolerance and very costly to a non-profit arts institution,” the Times quoted Grenell as saying in a letter to Redd.
“This is your official notice that we will seek $1 million in damages from you for this political stunt,” the Times quoted Grenell’s letter as saying.
A spokesperson for the Trump-Kennedy Center did not immediately respond to an inquiry from the Washington Blade asking if the center still planned to file that lawsuit and whether it planned to file suits against some of the other musicians who recently cancelled their performances following the name change.
In a follow-up story published on Dec. 29, the New York Times reported that a prominent jazz ensemble and a New York dance company had canceled performances scheduled to take place on New Year’s Eve at the Kennedy Center.
The Times reported the jazz ensemble called The Cookers did not give a reason for the cancellation in a statement it released, but its drummer, Billy Hart, told the Times the center’s name change “evidently” played a role in the decision to cancel the performance.
Grenell released a statement on Dec. 29 calling these and other performers who cancelled their shows “far left political activists” who he said had been booked by the Kennedy Center’s previous leadership.
“Boycotting the arts to show you support the arts is a form of derangement syndrome,” the Times quoted him as saying in his statement.
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