A D.C. Superior Court judge on Jan. 10 sentenced a 16-year-old male to a year of probation after he pleaded guilty to a single charge of simple assault related to the Oct. 27 incident in which police said as many as 15 people attacked a gay man at the D.C. McDonald’s restaurant at 14th and U Streets, N.W., with some of the attackers shouting anti-gay slurs.

The Washington Post published an exclusive report of the sentencing after its reporter was allowed to attend a juvenile court hearing that is closed to the public and the press on the condition that the Post would not disclose the name of the juvenile.

The Post story says prosecutors at the court hearing said that a week after the attack, the juvenile, accompanied by his mother, met with D.C. police, admitted to being a part of the attack, and was arrested. “The youth said he was intoxicated at the time and did not remember many of his actions,” the Post reports.

The victim in the case, Sebastian Thomas Robles Lascarro, 22, told police and the Washington Blade through a statement from his husband, Stuart West, that the attack began inside the McDonald’s about 1 a.m. when one of the attackers, a woman, criticized him for not saying “excuse me” when he walked past her inside the crowded restaurant.

When he walked away from the woman as many as 10 or more people started to assault Lascarro, according Lascarro’s account relayed by West. “And so, they started punching him all over his face and body, and it eventually moved to the outside of the McDonald’s on the D.C. sidewalk, where more people got involved and started hitting him and assaulting him,” West said.

Lascarro was taken by ambulance to Howard University Hospital, where he was treated and released the next day recovering from multiple bruises and cuts on his face, head and body, his husband said. Police listed the incident as a suspected hate crime.

No immediate arrests were made, but police released to the public and the media photos of seven suspects obtained from video surveillance cameras at McDonald’s, all of whom appeared to be juveniles. In a Nov. 6 statement, police announced they arrested one day earlier a 16-year-old juvenile male in connection with the attack on a charge of Assault With Significant Bodily Injury.

The Post story reports that during the Jan. 11 hearing D.C. prosecutor Gabrielle LoGaglio played two security videos that captured the outdoor part of the Oct. 27 attack against Lascarro at the McDonald’s. “The youth charged in the attack was clearly identifiable because he was wielding a tiki torch-like pole and was seen striking Lascarro on the head with it, she said,” the Post story reports.

The story reports that through an arrangement with prosecutors, the juvenile pleaded guilty to a single count of simple assault. It says while standing next to his court appointed attorney, the juvenile repeatedly apologized to Lascarro, who was watching the hearing through a video hookup.

“From the bottom of my heart, I want to say I am sorry to the victim and his family,” the Post quoted him as saying. “I was not raised by my mother to behave like that,” the Post quote continues. “I am sorry. I am not a criminal. I have shown people love and respect and kindness. I am sorry for the emotional and physical damage I have caused.”

The Post story also quoted from a statement that Lascarro submitted to the court and which prosecutors read. West, Lascarro’s husband, sent a copy of the statement to the Blade.

Lascarro says in his statement that he moved to D.C. from his home country of Colombia in 2023 after marrying his husband because D.C. “felt so open and welcoming to people like me — gay and proud.” He added, “Here, I felt safe to be myself, to dress how I wanted, wear makeup, and just live my life” as he could not feel safe doing in his home country.

“After the attack, everything changed,” he says in his statement. “I don’t feel safe anymore. I don’t feel like I can be myself without looking over my shoulder,” the statement continues. “It’s hard to put into words how this has hurt me mentally. The bruises are gone now, but the fear and trauma are still with me every day.”

The Post reports that prosecutors said they agreed to a sentence of one year’s probation because the juvenile had no prior arrests. At the request of prosecutors, Judge Charles J. Willoughby Jr. agreed to include in the sentencing that the juvenile be placed on GPS monitoring and be “ordered to attend school regularly and take random drug and alcohol tests as needed.”

According to the Post, Judge Willoughby described the attack against Lascarro as “vicious and unprovoked,” and told the juvenile “you need to stay away from those other juveniles” who joined him in the attack on Lascarro.

The sentencing in D.C. federal court for Ruby Corado, the founder and executive director of the now-defunct LGBTQ community services organization Casa Ruby on a charge of wire fraud, has been postponed from Jan. 10 to March 28.

The postponement came just under six months after Corado pleaded guilty on July 17 to a single charge of wire fraud as part of a plea bargain deal offered by prosecutors.

Court records show that the judge presiding over the case on Dec. 24 approved a request by Corado’s attorney for the postponement and that prosecutors with the Office of the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia supported the request.

The charge to which she pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia says she diverted at least $150,000 “in taxpayer backed emergency COVID relief funds to private offshore bank accounts for her personal use,” according to a statement released by the U.S. Attorney’s office.

Under the federal wire fraud law, for which Corado is being prosecuted, she could be subjected to a possible maximum sentence of up to 20 years in prison, a fine up to $250,000, and restitution requiring her to repay the funds she stole.

Corado’s guilty plea in July came a little over six weeks after prosecutors on May 31 filed a one-count criminal information charge of wire fraud against her that replaced an earlier criminal complaint charging her with bank fraud, money laundering, monetary transactions in criminally derived proceeds, and failure to file a required report of a foreign bank account.

The earlier complaint was filed at the time the FBI arrested Corado on March 5, 2024, at a hotel in Laurel, Md., shortly after she returned to the U.S. from El Salvador.

The initial complaint, like the second lesser complaint that replaced it, says the funds that Corado allegedly diverted to banks in El Salvador were intended for use by Casa Ruby to support indigent LGBTQ clients in need of housing and other support services.

A.J. Kramer, an attorney with the Federal Public Defender Service who is representing Corado, stated in a Dec. 23 motion filed in court that the sentencing postponement was needed to give the defense more time to respond to and obtain additional information regarding a Pre-Sentence Report that was issued on Dec. 11.

A statement on the U.S. District Court’s website says Pre-Sentence Reports, which are prepared by the U.S. Probation Office based on court records and background information on a defendant, are used by judges to decide on a sentence, with the judge having the sole authority to determine a sentence.

Pope Francis on Jan. 6 named Cardinal Robert McElroy of San Diego, who has a record of support for the LGBTQ community, as the new Archbishop of Washington, D.C.

At the time he is officially installed at a ceremony scheduled for March 11 at D.C.’s Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, he will replace retiring Cardinal Wilton Gregory, who has served as Archbishop of Washington since 2019 and who also has been supportive of the LGBTQ community.

As Archbishop of Washington, McElroy will serve as leader of the Archdiocese of Washington, which includes Catholic churches and other Catholic facilities in all of D.C. and five Maryland counties – Montgomery, Prince George’s, Calvert, Charles, and St. Mary’s.

Francis DeBernardo, executive director of the Mt. Rainier, Md., based LGBTQ Catholic organization New Ways Ministry,  released a statement praising McElroy’s appointment.

“New Ways Ministry is delighted that Pope Francis has appointed Cardinal Robert McElroy as the next Archbishop of Washington, D.C.,” DeBernardo said in his statement. “Cardinal McElroy, a brilliant theologian and astute political analyst, is the perfect person to lead this important archdiocese into the future,” he said.

DeBernardo added, “Of course, the most exciting feature about this appointment for New Ways Ministry is the cardinal’s strong positive statements regarding LGBTQ+ issues. His particular angle in this area is one often overlooked by other church leaders: He constantly calls on members of the church to examine their negative attitudes toward LGBTQ+ people.”

Among other things, DeBernardo pointed to a statement by McElroy in 2024 criticizing church leaders in the U.S. who objected to Pope Francis’s Vatican directive allowing the church to bless people in same-sex relationships while not endorsing same-sex marriage.

“He stated that opposition to such blessings reveals ‘an enduring animus among far too many toward LGBT persons,’” DeBernardo quoted McElroy’s statement as saying.

DeBernardo cited these additional statements or actions by McElroy in support of the LGBTQ community and LGBTQ Catholics:

 • In a 2023 essay, McElroy objected to what he called the “profound and visceral animus” toward LGBTQ people reflected among some in the Catholic Church, referring to the anti-LGBTQ animus as a “demonic mystery of the human soul.”

• In 2018, he publicly criticized the way he said gay priests were being scapegoated by some for the clergy sexual abuse crisis, saying such abuse was a matter of power, not sexual orientation.

• Also in 2018, McElroy expressed support for a gay pastoral worker at a church in his San Diego Archdiocese, Aaron Bianco, who was subjected to threats and harassment from some fellow church members because he was married to another man. 

• In 2016, McElory was one of the first Catholic Church leaders to offer condolences to the LGBTQ community after the Pulse gay nightclub mass shooting, in which a lone gunman killed 49 mostly LGBTQ people and wounded 53 others at the Orlando, Fla., nightclub.

DeBernardo pointed to what he called the importance of Cardinal McElroy’s assuming a high-level church leadership position in the nation’s capital at a time when the incoming U.S. president, Donald Trump, and incoming Congress were not expected to be supportive of LGBTQ rights.

“We are confident that Cardinal McElroy can provide a strong Catholic voice affirming the human dignity of LGBTQ+ people and the need for laws that will protect them,” DeBernardo said in his statement.

“New Ways Ministry is grateful to Cardinal Wilton Gregory for his leadership in Washington over the past decade,” the statement says. “Cardinal Gregory, too, has shown great concern for the dignity and rights of LGBTQ+ people. His legacy as a prophetic leader will endure.”

Vince Rodriguez, president of the local LGBTQ Catholic organization Dignity Washington, shares DeBernardo’s view that McElroy will have a positive impact on the LGBTQ community and LGBTQ Catholics.

“I’m delighted, absolutely delighted about this appointment that the Pope has made,” Rodriquez told the Washington Blade. “I think it’s a pretty timely decision given the incoming administration and some of the pushback that we’ve seen on LGBT rights and what may be coming,” he said in referring to the incoming Trump administration.

“So, I think it will be good to have a voice here in Washington to hopefully challenge some of that,” Rodriguez said.