Local
Del. gay man who alleged police abuse found guilty
Anti-gay bias allegation not mentioned in trial
Robaire G. Lizama was found guilty of several misdemeanor charges.
(Photo courtesy Lizama)
GEORGETOWN, Del. — A 66-year-old gay man who filed a complaint against a police officer in Lewes, Del., for allegedly using excessive force to arrest him in January during an altercation at a hospital emergency room was found guilty by a Delaware judge on Tuesday on misdemeanor charges of disorderly conduct, menacing, and resisting arrest.
Judge Rosemary Beauregard of the Sussex County Court of Common Pleas announced at the conclusion of a non-jury trial in Georgetown, Del., that a state prosecutor proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Robaire G. Lizama engaged in “hysterical and abusive” behavior at the hospital that justified his arrest and confirmed he committed the three offenses.
In a development that court observers said was routine for a misdemeanor case like this one, Beauregard handed down an immediate sentence for Lizama that included a 30-day suspended jail term, six months of court-monitored probation, and a $600 fine plus $57 in court reimbursement costs.
In another development likely to surprise LGBT activists familiar with the case, Lizama’s public defender attorney Heather Lingo made no mention during the trial of Lizama’s written complaint to the Lewes Police Department in February alleging that the arresting officer singled him out because he’s gay.
When approached by the Blade after the trial Lingo declined to comment, saying she would have nothing more to say about the case.
“I don’t think he would grab a straight man, bear hug him and then body slam him to the ground and try to tell him he’s being arrested,” Lizama told the Washington Blade at the time he filed his complaint with Lewes Police Chief Thomas Sell in February.
Lizama, a former D.C. resident who lives in Lewes, has accused Officer Tyrone Woodyard of fabricating the charges against him after throwing him to the floor, causing a head injury during a Jan. 25 incident at Beebe Healthcare, a hospital in Lewes.
The arrest report prepared by Woodyard says Lizama had been acting in a disorderly manner after he accompanied a female friend to the emergency room who had been experiencing chest pain. Lizama testified at the trial that he was concerned that nurses who admitted and began to treat his friend weren’t being compassionate in their handling of the situation.
He denied he acted in a threatening or menacing way or that he refused to leave the emergency room when asked to do so by one of the nurses.
Jaqueline Marshall, the emergency room nurse who participated in the treatment of Lizama’s friend, and hospital security officer Julian Peacock testified that Lizama – while understandably upset that his friend may have been suffering from a heart attack – behaved in such an aggressive and hysterical way that the nursing staff became alarmed and felt threatened.
Marshall, Peacock and Officer Woodyard each testified that Lizama “lunged” at Woodyard while Woodyard and Peacock were escorting Lizama out of the emergency room area to the hospital’s lobby, where they told him he would have to wait while his friend was treated.
Woodyard told the court he couldn’t immediately determine whether Lizama was armed when Lizama suddenly turned toward him in an aggressive way. He said he decided to “taken him down” on the floor out of concern that Lizama could have harmed the nurses and others walking through the emergency room area.
Woodyard and Peacock testified that when Woodyard tried to handcuff Lizama after telling him he was under arrest, Lizama resisted the officer’s attempts to place cuffs on one of his hands and struggled with the officer and Peacock on the floor. This prompted another nurse to enter the fray and assist in restraining Lizama, the two testified.
Lizama testified that he turned toward Woodyard because he was trying to find his way to the entrance to the hospital lobby and in no way was attempting to attack or harm Woodyard. He said he didn’t resist the officer’s attempt to handcuff him but was moving about because he was in pain and was trying to place his hand over his forehead above his eye, which was bleeding after his head struck the floor when Woodyard knocked him down.
In response to questioning by Lingo, Marshall and Peacock acknowledged that Lizama was admitted to the emergency department for treatment after his arrest. Lingo presented a photo of Lizama as evidence that showed a gash over his eye and pointed to Lizama’s testimony that the injury required a plastic bandage to stop the bleeding,
Assistant State Attorney General Paul Seward, the lead prosecutor in the case, presented as evidence a video recording taken from the hospital’s security cameras that shows Lizama and his friend enter the hospital’s emergency department. The video footage shows Lizama moving about and raising his arms in what appeared to be an agitated state as he talked to one of the nurses at the admissions desk.
Beauregard said she based her verdict on what she called “credible and consistent” testimony by Marshall, Peacock and Woodward. She said the three witnesses along with the video recording at the trial convinced her that Lizama’s behavior was, in fact, posing a potential danger to the hospital staff and other visitors and proved he committed the misdemeanor offenses of disorderly conduct, menacing and resisting arrest.
The judge called Lizama’s testimony at the trial “inconsistent” and “contradictory.”
“All three of those witnesses thought something bad was going to happen,” she said. “He put the public at risk and he put his friend at risk,” said Beauregard, saying the disturbance Lizama was creating could have interfered with the nurses’ and doctors’ effort to diagnose and treat the friend.
It was later determined that the friend did not have a heart attack.
Lizama told the Blade after the trial that he had told Lingo, his attorney, about his belief that Officer Woodyard targeted him because he’s gay. He said he doesn’t know why Lingo didn’t raise that concern during the trial.
He has acknowledged that he doesn’t recall Woodyard making anti-gay remarks or making a reference to his sexual orientation at the time of the arrest but said he nevertheless got the impression that the officer assumed he’s gay.
When approached after the trial and asked by the Blade about Lizama’s allegation of anti-gay bias, Officer Woodyard refused to comment, saying he wasn’t authorized to speak to the media.
“I’m totally shocked,” Lizama said of the judge’s guilty verdict in an interview after the trial.
He said Lingo suggested he accept a plea bargain offer that Seward made minutes before the start of the trial. Still reeling over the verdict, Lizama said he didn’t remember what the terms of the plea offer consisted of.
“I told my attorney if I don’t think I’m guilty why would I plead guilty?” said Lizama. “I wholeheartedly didn’t think I was guilty so I said no. I wanted to go with the trial.”
District of Columbia
Bowser appoints first nonbinary person to Cabinet-level position
Peter Stephan named Office of Disability Rights interim director
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bower has named longtime disability rights advocate Peter L. Stephan, who identifies as nonbinary, as interim director of the D.C. Office of Disability Rights.
The local transgender and nonbinary advocacy group Our Trans Capital and the LGBTQ group Capital Stonewall Democrats issued a joint statement calling Stephan’s appointment an historic development as the first-ever appointment of a nonbinary person to a Cabinet-level D.C. government position.
“This milestone appointment recognizes Stephan’s extensive expertise in disability rights advocacy and marks a historic advancement for transgender and nonbinary representation in District government leadership,” the statement says.
The statement notes that Stephan, an attorney, held the position of general counsel at the Office of Disability Rights immediately prior to the mayor’s decision to name him interim director.
The mayor’s office didn’t immediately respond to a question from the Washington Blade asking if Bowser plans to name Stephan as the permanent director of the Office of Disability Rights. John Fanning, a spokesperson for D.C. Council member Anita Bonds (D-At-Large), said the office’s director position requires confirmation by the Council.
Stephan couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.
“At a time when trans and nonbinary people ae under attack across the country, D.C. continues to lead by example,” said Stevie McCarty, president of Capital Stonewall Democrats. “This appointment reflects what we have always believed that our community is always strongest when every voice is represented in government,” he said.
“This is a historic step forward,” said Vida Rengel, founder of Our Trans Capital. “Interim Director Stephan’s career and accomplishments are a shining example of the positive impact that trans and nonbinary public servants can have on our communities,” according to Rangel.
District of Columbia
Capital Stonewall Democrats set to celebrate 50th anniversary
Mayor Bowser expected to attend March 20 event
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, members of the D.C. Council, and local and national Democratic Party officials are expected to join more than 150 LGBTQ advocates and supporters on March 20 for the 50th anniversary celebration of the city’s Capital Stonewall Democrats.
A statement released by the organization says the event is scheduled to be held at the Pepco Edison Place Gallery building at 702 8th St., N.W. in D.C.
“The evening will honor the people who built Capital Stonewall Democrats across five decades – activists who fought for rights when the odds were against them, public servants who opened doors and refused to let them close, and a new generation of leaders ready to carry the work forward,” the statement says.
Founded in 1976 as the Gertrude Stein Democratic Club, the organization’s members voted in 2021 to change its name to the Capital Stonewall Democrats.
Among those planning to attend the anniversary event is longtime D.C. gay Democratic activist Paul Kuntzler, 84, who is one of the two co-founders of the then-Gertrude Stein Democratic Club. Kuntzler told the Washington Blade that he and co-founder Richard Maulsby were joined by about a dozen others in the living room of his Southwest D.C. home at the group’s founding meeting in January 1976.
He said that among the reasons for forming a local LGBTQ Democratic group at the time was to arrange for a then “gay” presence at the 1976 Democratic National Convention, at which Jimmy Carter won the Democratic nomination for U.S. president and later won election as president.
Maulsby, who served as the Stein Club president for its first three years and who now lives in Sarasota, Fla., said he would not be attending the March 20 anniversary event, but he fully supports the organization’s continuing work as an LGBTQ organization associated with the Democratic Party.
Steven McCarty, Capital Stonewall Democrats’ current president, said in the statement that the anniversary celebration will highlight the organization’s work since the time of its founding.
“Capital Stonewall Democrats has been fighting for LGBTQ+ political power in this city for 50 years, electing people, training organizers, holding this community together through some really hard moments,” he said. “And right now, with everything going on, that work has never mattered more. This gala is the first moment of our next chapter, and I want the community to be a part of it.”
The statement says among the special guests attending the event will be Democratic National Committee Vice Chair Malcolm Kenyatta, who became the first openly gay LGBTQ person of color to win election to the Pennsylvania General Assembly in 2018.
Other guests of honor, according to the statement, include Mayor Bowser; D.C. Council member Zachary Parker (D-Ward 5, the Council’s only gay member; D.C. Council member Anita Bonds (D-At-Large); Earl Fowlkes, founder of the International Federation of Black Prides; Vita Rangel, a transgender woman who serves as Deputy Director of the D.C. Mayor’s Office of Talent and Appointments; Heidi Ellis, director of the D.C. LGBTQ Budget Coalition; Rayceen Pendarvis, longtime D.C. LGBTQ civic activist; and Phillip Pannell, longtime D.C. LGBTQ Democratic activist and Ward 8 civic activist.
Information about ticket availability for the Capital Stonewall Democrats anniversary gala can be accessed here: capitalstonewalldemocrats.com/50th
Maryland
Md. Legislative LGBTQ+ Caucus outlines 2026 priorities
Expanded PrEP access among objectives
Maryland’s Legislative LGBTQ+ Caucus outlined legislative priorities for the remainder of the General Assembly’s 2026 term during a press conference on March 5.
State Del. Kris Fair (D-Fredrick County) led the press conference. State Del. Ashanti Martinez (D-Prince George’s County) and other caucus members also spoke.
Caucus members are sponsoring 12 bills and supporting four others.
Martinez is sponsoring House Bill 1114, which would expand PrEP access in Maryland.
“PrEP is 99 percent effective in preventing HIV transmission,” he explained, noting PrEP’s cost often turns away potential users.
The bill aims to extend insurance coverage and expand pharmacists’ ability to prescribe PrEP along with other HIV treatments and testing. Martinez is working with state Sen. Clarence Lam (D-Anne Arundel and Howard Counties) and FreeState Justice on the bill.
The House Health Committee had a hearing last week that included HB1114.
“Ending the HIV epidemic is about expanding access and providing these life-saving tools to all persons in Maryland,” Martinez said.
Several other pieces of legislation were highlighted during the press conferences. They included measures focused on youth and education, birth certificate markers, so-called conversion therapy, and hormone medications.
State Sen. Cheryl Kagan (D-Montgomery County) is cosponsoring Senate Bill 950, which would update and strengthen conversion therapy laws. State Del. Bonnie Cullison (D-Montgomery County) has introduced an identical bill that would extend the statute of limitations on individuals who facilitate conversion therapy.
Kagan explained the bill would allow conversion therapy victims to come to terms with their experience undergoing the widely discredited practice that “creates shame and it silences survivors.”
When questioned, Fair explained the press conference happened late into the legislative session because “we [the caucus] are constantly having to respond in real time to what’s happening in Washington” while drafting and considering pieces of legislation.
The Frederick County Democrat described this session’s bills as the “most ambitious list of priorities to date.” Fair also described the caucus’s goals.
“It’s decency, it’s dignity, and its humanity,” he said.
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