2 Men Plead Not Guilty In Hate Crime [View All]

[AlphaCentauri]

Source: THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Two Ecuadorean brothers, stumbling home arm-in-arm after a night out, were viciously attacked, and one beaten to death with a baseball bat, by prejudiced, anti-Hispanic men who mistook them for a gay couple, prosecutors said Tuesday.

Hakim Scott and Keith Phoenix went on trial on charges of murder and assault as a hate crime, one day after a teenager was convicted of manslaughter as a hate crime in an unrelated but similar case on Long Island where an Ecuadorean man was stabbed to death.

Scott, 26, and Phoenix, 30, have pleaded not guilty in the death of Jose Sucuzhanay and attempted assault of his brother, Romel. Scott is accused of smashing a beer bottle over Jose Sucuzhanay's head, then chasing after Romel with the jagged edge. Prosecutors said Phoenix then beat Jose Sucuzhanay with an aluminum baseball bat so badly he cracked his skull open. He died days after the attack.

The brothers were walking home from a bar after a party at a local church in Brooklyn on Dec. 7, 2008. Romel Sucuzhanay had put his coat around his brother to keep him warm, and was helping him walk because he was fairly drunk, prosecutors said.

Meanwhile, Scott, Phoenix and a teenage relative of Phoenix's, also leaving a party, pulled up in an SUV. They began yelling anti-gay and anti-Hispanic slurs, according to Assistant District Attorney Josh Hanshaft.


Read more: http://www.wpix.com/news/local/wpix-ecuadorean-brothers-hate-crime,0,4106231.story