District of Columbia
Trial set for D.C. gay murder case four years after arrest of suspect
Police say victim stabbed 47 times by man he invited to his apartment
A then 26-year-old U.S. Navy Hospital Corpsman charged in the Jan. 6, 2019, murder of gay retail manager Vongell Lugo inside Lugo’s D.C. apartment is scheduled to go on trial for first-degree murder and other charges on April 18, 2023, according to D.C. Superior Court records.
A spokesperson for the Office of the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, which is prosecuting the case, has confirmed the trial date but declined to say why or whether it is unusual that it has taken more than four years to schedule a trial for a suspect arrested at the scene of the murder and on the day it took place.
Court records and a D.C. police arrest affidavit filed in court state that then U.S. Navy Hospital Corpsman 3rd Class Collin J. Potter allegedly stabbed Lugo at least 47 times in the upper body and genital area shortly after Lugo, 36, invited him into his apartment at 2844 Wisconsin Ave., N.W. near the Washington National Cathedral.
The arrest affidavit says police arrived at the apartment building when a neighbor called 911 after hearing screams coming from Lugo’s apartment. Upon their arrival, the affidavit says, officers saw Potter fully nude standing over Lugo’s nude body, which was lying on the floor in the hall outside Lugo’s apartment door.
“Defendant Potter had blood visible on various areas of his body, to include his arms and feet, however he did not have any apparent injuries,” the arrest affidavit says.
During an April 26, 2019 preliminary hearing in D.C. Superior Court, D.C. Police Homicide Det. Tony Covington testified that police believe Potter dragged Lugo outside the apartment door after allegedly fatally stabbing him inside the apartment.
Covington in his testimony reiterated the arrest affidavit’s assertion that Potter referred to Lugo as his “girlfriend” and as “she” when officers first approached him outside the apartment. NBC News reported that police sources said Potter told police his “girlfriend” had died by suicide and he asked police to kill him.
The detective also testified that a police investigation found that Potter and Lugo met on the night of the murder at the Black Whisky bar at 1410 14th St., N.W. in D.C. Covington said the investigation at that time had not determined whether Potter and Lugo knew each other prior to the time they met up at the Black Whiskey on the night of the murder.
A friend of Lugo’s told the Washington Blade that Lugo, who was openly gay, liked to hang out at straight bars and the Black Whiskey was one of the bars he patronized.
In his court testimony, Det. Covington said police had no known motive for why Potter allegedly stabbed Lugo to death in the apartment.
Court records show police initially charged Potter with second-degree murder and prosecutors extended a plea bargain offer calling for him to plead guilty to second-degree murder in exchange for prosecutors not seeking a first-degree murder charge before a grand jury. The court records show Potter through a court-appointed attorney rejected the offer.
The records show a D.C. Superior Court Grand Jury on Aug. 20, 2019, handed down a five-count indictment against Potter, charging him with two counts of First-Degree Felony Murder While Armed, Felony Murder While Armed Aggravating Circumstances, First-Degree Sexual Abuse While Armed, and Kidnapping.
Potter has pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Under D.C.’s criminal code, First Degree Sexual Abuse replaced what used to be the charge of rape under D.C. law.
“On or about January 6, within the District of Columbia, Collin Potter, while armed with and having readily available a dangerous weapon, that is a knife or other sharp object, engaged in a sexual act with Vongell Lugo, that is, the penetration of Vongell Lugo’s anus by Collin Potter’s penis, by using force against Vongell Lugo (First Degree Sexual Abuse While Armed),” the indictment states.
The indictment states that on the same day and location, while armed with a knife, Potter “seized, confined, kidnapped, abducted, physically assaulted and carried away Vongell Lugo, with the intent to hold and detain Vongell Lugo, for the purpose of sexually assaulting him (Kidnapping While Armed).”
During the April 2019 preliminary hearing, in which Judge Juliet McKenna found probable cause that Potter committed the offense, defense attorney Matthew Davies argued that police and prosecutors provided insufficient evidence that Potter committed the murder. He said the evidence cannot rule out the assertion by the defense that the murder was committed by someone else who had access to Lugo’s apartment.
“We don’t know who else was in that apartment and who else was in there and left,” he said.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Nebiyu Feleke, one of the prosecutors in the case, argued that prosecutors presented “ample evidence” to show Potter and Lugo were the only two in the apartment at the time of the murder. He noted that Potter himself told police at the time they arrived on the scene that he and Lugo were the only two in the apartment that night.
Court observers have said the COVID-19 pandemic has caused delays in many cases, especially civil cases, pending before the D.C. Superior Court, and that could have played a role in the delay in scheduling the trial for Potter.
Court records show that Davies, Potter’s attorney, introduced an emergency motion in March 2020 requesting that Potter be released into a halfway house while awaiting trial because of the high risk of contracting and dying from COVID in the D.C. Jail. The records show that, at the request of prosecutors, the judge denied the motion on grounds that Potter would pose a risk to the community if released.
Potter has been held without bond since the time of his arrest. The next court hearing, prior to the start of the April 18 trial, is a trial readiness hearing scheduled for Feb. 18 before Judge Marisa J. Demeo.
More than 80 friends, co-workers, and family members turned out for a candlelight vigil to honor the life of Lugo, which was held Jan. 11, 2019 in a small park across the street from where Lugo lived. Among those participating were employees of TransPerfect, an international company that provides foreign language translation, interpretation and business services where Lugo worked as an associate manager.
District of Columbia
Faith programming remains key part of Creating Change Conference
‘Faith work is not an easy pill to swallow in LGBTQ spaces’
The National LGBTQ Task Force kicked off the 38th annual Creating Change conference in D.C. this week. This year, as with years past, faith and interfaith programming remains a key part of the conference’s mission and practice.
For some, the presence of faith work at an LGBTQ+ conference may seem antithetical, and Creating Change does not deny the history of harm caused by religious institutions. “We have to be clear that faith work is not an easy pill to swallow in LGBTQ spaces, and they’re no qualms about saying that we acknowledge the pain, trauma, and violence that’s been purported in the name of religion,” Tahil Sharma, Faith Work Director for the National LGBTQ Task Force, said.
In fact, several panels at the conference openly discuss acknowledging, healing from, and resisting religious harm as well as religious nationalism, including one scheduled today titled “Defending Democracy Through Religious Activism: A panel of experts on effective strategies for faith and multi-faith organizing” that features local queer faith activists like Ebony C. Peace, Rob Keithan, and Eric Eldritch who are also involved in the annual DC Pride Interfaith Service.
Another session will hold space for survivors of religious violence, creating “a drop-in space for loving on each other in healing ways, held by Rev. Alba Onofrio and Teo Drake.”
But Sharma and others who organized the Creating Change Conference explained that “a state of antipathy” towards religious communities, especially those that align with queer liberation and solidarity, is counterproductive and denies the rich history of queer religious activism. “It’s time for us to make a call for an approach to LGBTQ+ liberation that uses interfaith literacy as a tool rather than as a weapon against us,” Sharma explained.
Recognizing a local queer faith icon
Along with the panels, fighting religious nationalism and fostering communion with aligned faith activists and communities is at heart of this year’s faith work. As Sharma shared, “the person that we’re honoring this year for the faith award is Rev. Dr. Sofía Betancourt, and Dr. Betancourt is an amazing leader and someone who really stands out in representing UUs but also representing herself unapologetically.”
Based in the Washington, D.C. area, Dr. Betancourt has more than 20 years of experience working as a public minister, seminary professor, scholar, and environment ethicist, and public theologian. Her activism is rooted in her lived identities as a queer, multiracial, AfroLatine first-generation daughter of immigrants from Chile and Panama, and has been a critical voice in advancing the United Universalism towards anti-racist and pluralistic faith work.
Creating a faith-based gathering space
Sharma also said that faith fosters a unique space and practice to encounter grief and joy. For this reason, Sharma wants to “create a space for folks to engage in curiosity, to engage in spiritual fulfillment and grounding but also I think with the times that we’re in to lean into some space to mourn, some space to find hope.” The Many Paths Gathering Space serves this purpose, where visitors can stop for spiritual practice, speak with a Spiritual Care Team member, or just take a sensory break from the bustle of the conference.
This also means uplifting and foregrounding queer religious ephemera with an ofrenda to honor those who have passed, a display of nonbinary Korean American photographer Salgu Wissmath’s exhibition Divine Identity, and the Shower of Stoles, a collection of about 1,500 liturgical stoles and other sacred regalia representing the lives of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people of faith.
The Shower of Stoles
The collection was first started in 1995 by Martha Juillerat and Tammy Lindahl who received eighty stoles that accompanied them and lent them solace as they set aside their ordinations from the Presbyterian Church. The whole collection was first displayed at the 1996 General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in New Mexico. The stoles, according to the Task Force, “quickly became a powerful symbol of the huge loss to the church of gifted leadership.”
Each stole represents the story of a queer person who is active in the life and leadership of their faith community, often sent in by the people themselves but sometimes by a loved one in their honor. About one third of all the stoles are donated anonymously, and over three-quarters of the stoles donated by clergy and full-time church professionals are contributed anonymously.
The collection shows “not just the deep harm that has been caused that does not allow people to meet their vocation when they’re faith leaders, but it also speaks to how there have been queer and trans people in our [faith] communities since the beginning of our traditions, and they continue to serve in forms of leadership,” Sharma explained.
Explicit interfaith work
Along with creating a sacred space for attendees, hosting workshops focused on faith-based action, and recognizing DC’s rich queer religious history, Creating Change is also hosting explicitly faith services, like a Buddhist Meditation, Catholic Mass, Shabbat service, Jummah Prayer Service, and an ecumenical Christian service on Sunday. Creating Change is also welcoming events at the heart of queer religious affirmation, including a Name/Gender/Pronoun/Identity Blessing Ritual and a reading and discussion around queer bibles stories with Rev. Sex (aka Rev. Alba Onofrio).
But along with specific faith-based programs, Sharma explained, “we’re looking to build on something that I helped to introduce, which was the separation of the interfaith ceremony that’s happening this year which is a vigil versus the ecumenical Christian service which is now the only thing that takes place on Sunday morning.”
This includes an Interfaith Empowerment Service this evening and an Interfaith Institute tomorrow, along with “Sing In the Revolution,” an event where folks are invited “to actually engage in the joy and rhythm of resolution and what that looks like,” Sharma said. One of the key activators behind this work is Rev. Eric Eldritch, an ordained Pagan clergy person with Circle Sanctuary and a member of the Pride Interfaith Service planning committee.
Affirming that queer faith work is part of liberation
The goal for this year, Sharma noted, alongside holding space and discussions about faith-based practice and liberation and intentional interfaith work–is to move from thinking about why faith matters in queer liberation spaces to “how is interfaith work the tool for how we’re engaging in our understanding of de-escalation work, digital strategies, navigating a deeper visioning that we need for a better world that requires us to think that we’re not alone in the struggle for mutual abundance and liberation,” Sharma explained.
It may surprise people to learn that faith work has intentionally been part of the National LGBTQ+ Task Force since its beginning in the 1980s. “We can really credit that to some of the former leadership like Urvashi Vaid who actually had a sense of understanding of what role faith plays in the work of liberation and justice,” Sharma said.
“For being someone who wasn’t necessarily religious, she certainly did have a clear understanding of the relationship between those folks who are allies, those folks who stand against us, and then those folks who sit in between–those folks who profess to be of religious and spiritual background and also are unapologetically LGBTQ+,” he continued.
This year’s faith programming builds on this rich history, thinking about “a way to kind of open doors, to not just invite people in but our people to go out into the general scene of the conference” to share how faith-based work is a tool, rather than a hindrance, to queer liberation work.
District of Columbia
Sold-out crowd turns out for 10th annual Caps Pride night
Gay Men’s Chorus soloist sings National Anthem, draws cheers
A sold-out crowd of 18,347 turned out on Jan. 17 for the 10th annual Pride Night at the Washington Capitals hockey game held at D.C.’s Capital One Arena.
Although LGBTQ Capitals fans were disappointed that the Capitals lost the game to the visiting Florida Panthers, they were treated to a night of celebration with Pride-related videos showing supportive Capitals players and fans projected on the arena’s giant video screen throughout the game.
The game began when Dana Nearing, a member of the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington, sang the National Anthem, drawing applause from all attendees.
The event also served as a fundraiser for the LGBTQ groups Wanda Alston Foundation, which provides housing services to homeless LGBTQ youth, and You Can Play, a nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing LGBTQ inclusion in sports.
“Amid the queer community’s growing love affair with hockey, I’m incredibly honored and proud to see our hometown Capitals continue to celebrate queer joy in such a visible and meaningful way,” said Alston Foundation Executive Director Cesar Toledo.
Capitals spokesperson Nick Grossman said a fundraising raffle held during the game raised $14,760 for You Can Play. He said a fundraising auction for the Alston Foundation organized by the Capitals and its related Monumental Sports and Entertainment Foundation would continue until Thursday, Jan. 22
A statement on the Capitals website says among the items being sold in the auction were autographed Capitals player hockey sticks with rainbow-colored Pride tape wrapped around them, which Capitals players used in their pre-game practice on the ice.
Although several hundred people turned out for a pre-game Pride “block party” at the District E restaurant and bar located next to the Capital One Arena, it couldn’t immediately be determined how many Pride night special tickets for the game were sold.
“While we don’t disclose specific figures related to special ticket offers, we were proud to host our 10th Pride night and celebrate the LGBTQ+ community,” Capitals spokesperson Grossman told the Washington Blade.
District of Columbia
D.C.’s annual MLK Peace Walk and Parade set for Jan. 19
LGBTQ participants expected to join mayor’s contingent
Similar to past years, members of the LGBTQ community were expected to participate in D.C.’s 21st annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day Peace Walk and Parade scheduled to take place Monday, Jan. 19.
Organizers announced this year’s Peace Walk, which takes place ahead of the parade, was scheduled to begin at 10:30 a.m. at the site of a Peace Rally set to begin at 9:30 a.m. at the intersection of Firth Sterling Avenue and Sumner Road, S.E., a short distance from Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue.
The Peace Walk and the parade, which is scheduled to begin at 11 a.m. at the same location, will each travel along Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue a little over a half mile to Marion Barry Avenue near the 11th Street Bridge where they will end.
Japer Bowles, director of D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs, said he and members of his staff would be marching in the parade as part of the mayor’s parade contingent. In past years, LGBTQ community members have also joined the mayor’s parade contingent.
Stuart Anderson, one of the MLK Day parade organizers, said he was not aware of any specific LGBTQ organizations that had signed up as a parade contingent for this year’s parade. LGBTQ group contingents have joined the parade in past years.
Denise Rolark Barnes, one of the lead D.C. MLK Day event organizers, said LGBTQ participants often join parade contingents associated with other organizations.
Barnes said a Health and Wellness Fair was scheduled to take place on the day of the parade along the parade route in a PNC Bank parking lot at 2031 Martin Luther King Jr. Ave., S.E.
A statement on the D.C. MLK Day website describes the parade’s history and impact on the community.
“Established to honor the life and legacy of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the parade united residents of Ward 8, the District, and the entire region in the national movement to make Dr. King’s birthday a federal holiday,” the statement says. “Today, the parade not only celebrates its historic roots but also promotes peace and non-violence, spotlights organizations that serve the community, and showcases the talent and pride of school-aged children performing for family, friends, and community members.”
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