News
Four men convicted of killing gay Chilean man sentenced
Attack’s alleged mastermind sentenced to life in prison
Daniel Zamudio’s death in March 2012 sparked outrage across Chile and prompted lawmakers to pass a hate crimes and anti-discrimination bill. (Photos courtesy of Fundación Daniel Zamudio.)
The newspaper El Mercurio reported that Patricio Ahumada Garay, who prosecutors say masterminded the attack against Daniel Zamudio in a Santiago park on March 3, 2012, received a life sentence. The court also sentenced Raúl López Fuentes and Alejandro Angulo Tapia to 15 years in prison.
Fabián Mora Mora received a seven year sentence.
Prosecutors contend the four men who described themselves as neo-Nazis attacked Zamudio because he was gay. They said Ahumada, López, Angulo and Mora struck him with bottles and other blunt objects before they cut off part of his ear, carved swastikas into his chest and burned other body parts with cigarettes.
Zamudio died in a Santiago hospital nearly a month after the attack.
The crime sparked widespread outrage across Chile.
President Sebastián Piñera in July 2012 signed a hate crimes and anti-discrimination bill that includes both sexual orientation and gender identity and expression that had languished in the South American country’s Congress for seven years. Jaime Parada Hoyl, a Chilean LGBT rights advocate who last November became the first openly gay political candidate elected in the South American country, told the Washington Blade during an interview in D.C. last fall that Zamudio’s death was a “point of inflection” for Chile and its lawmakers.
Anti-LGBT violence remains a concern for Chilean advocates
The Movement for Homosexual Integration and Liberation (Movilh,) a Chilean LGBT advocacy group, last week expressed outrage over what it described as an anti-gay attack against 21-year-old Wladimir Sepúlveda near the city of Rancagua that left him in a coma.
Doctors in June amputated Esteban Navarro Quinchevil’s leg after a group of six men attacked him on a soccer field in a Santiago suburb because he is gay. A transgender teenager from the coastal city of Cartagena lost an eye in May during what Movilh maintains was an anti-trans attack.
The Vatican
Pope Leo XIV: Family based on ‘stable union between a man and a woman’
American-born pontiff met with Vatican diplomats on May 15
Pope Leo XIV on May 15 reaffirmed Vatican doctrine that says marriage is between a man and a woman.
The Associated Press reported Leo told Vatican diplomats the family is created upon the “stable union between a man and a woman.” Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and dozens of other world leaders on Sunday attended the American-born pontiff’s installation Mass that took place in St. Peter’s Square.
The College of Cardinals earlier this month elected Leo to succeed Pope Francis, who died on April 21.
Francis, who was from Argentina, was a vocal opponent of the country’s marriage equality law that took effect in 2010. He was the archbishop of Buenos Aires, the Argentine capital, when then-President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner signed it.
Francis in 2020 publicly backed civil unions for gays and lesbians. Francis in 2023 said priests can bless same-sex couples.
Politics
Joe Biden diagnosed with ‘aggressive form’ of prostate cancer
The former president and his family are reviewing treatment options, according to a statement
According to a statement from his personal office on Sunday, former President Joe Biden has been diagnosed with an “aggressive form” of prostate cancer that has spread to his bones.
“Last week, President Joe Biden was seen for a new finding of a prostate nodule after experiencing increasing urinary symptoms. On Friday, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, characterized by a Gleason score of 9 (Grade Group 5) with metastasis to the bone,” the statement said.
Biden and his family “are reviewing treatment options with his physicians,” the statement said. “While this represents a more aggressive form of the disease, the cancer appears to be hormone-sensitive which allows for effective management.”
The Comings & Goings column is about sharing the professional successes of our community. We want to recognize those landing new jobs, new clients for their business, joining boards of organizations and other achievements. Please share your successes with us at [email protected].
Congratulations to Jamie Leeds, chef extraordinaire, on celebrating the 20th anniversary of Hank’s Oyster Bar in Dupont Circle. Leeds said, “I am feeling grateful that Hanks has been in such a supportive and friendly neighborhood for 20 years.”
Leeds is a pioneering and tenacious entrepreneur who has spent her career fostering community, mentoring other female business owners and culinary professionals, and supporting sustainable practices across her restaurants and the seafood industry at large.
She has 40 years of experience, from kitchens in Europe, to the D.C.-Maryland-Virginia-area. A self-taught chef, she began her career in New York in the early 1980s at Danny Meyer’s famed Union Square Cafe, working her way up from potato peeler to sous chef. With Meyer’s encouragement, she moved to France in 1991, where she spent a year honing her skills before returning stateside to work for Rich Melman, of Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises, in Chicago.
From the moment she appeared on the D.C. culinary scene, Leeds garnered positive reviews and accolades, earning nominations in 2003 as a “Rising Culinary Star” in the Restaurant Association of Metropolitan Washington’s Capital Restaurant & Hospitality Awards, and a “Rising Star Chef” by Starchefs’ local awards program.
I met Leeds in early 2005 as she was trying to open Hank’s in D.C.’s Dupont Circle, serving what she coined “urban beach food.” The restaurant was named for her father, whom she credits as her inspiration for becoming a chef. It debuted to wide acclaim. A few of us joined with Jamie to fight some local neighborhood residents who were trying to stop her opening for a host of invalid reasons. Thankfully, they lost, and the neighborhood, and people of D.C., won. Now celebrated for its range of proprietary oysters and other locally sourced seafood, Hank’s Oyster Bar continues to draw recognition as a D.C. institution and industry stalwart, recently winning “Best Raw Bar” in Washingtonian’s Best of Washington Readers’ Poll 2019, “Best Bloody Mary” and “Best Chef-Jamie Leeds” (a second consecutive win) from Washington Blade’s Best of Gay D.C. in 2019, 2020, and 2021 among numerous other accolades. Leeds now has a Hank’s Oyster Bar in Old Town Alexandria, Va., and her largest location, Hank’s on the Wharf, which opened in October 2017.
In June of 2021 she was recognized by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce for inspiring LGBTQ+ entrepreneurs in the DMV area, and her approach to sustainable and inclusive business practices. A resident of North Chevy Chase, Md., when she’s not busy at the helm of her burgeoning restaurant empire, she enjoys spending time with her wife, Tina, and two children, Hayden and Hazel.
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Joe Biden diagnosed with ‘aggressive form’ of prostate cancer
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Down to shuck!
