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| A grand jury last week rejected claims by Roderick Johnson, a gay Navy veteran
and former prison inmate in Texas, that he was raped by 49 other inmates and
sold as an unwilling sex slave. (Photo courtesy of the ACLU)
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WICHITA FALLS, Texas (AP) — A grand jury returned no indictments against
49 prison inmates accused of raping and selling a former prisoner as an unwilling
sex slave. A 70-page investigative report presented last week persuaded jurors
that Roderick Johnson’s allegations of prison gang rapes and beatings were
unfounded, said Tanya Perry, the Office of the Inspector General investigator
who handled the case. “We looked at everything,” Perry said in Saturday’s
editions of the Wichita Falls Times Record News. “We left no stone unturned,
and there was nothing to support that this allegation occurred.” Johnson,
a gay Navy veteran, went to prison for burglary and was paroled. He returned
after bouncing a $200 check. The American Civil Liberties Union, which filed
a lawsuit on Johnson’s behalf, disputed the investigation’s findings,
alleging that the Texas Department of Criminal Justice and guards at the Allred
Unit, just northwest of Wichita Falls, did nothing to stop rapes of Johnson.
The civil case is pending in federal court.
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A Virginia man given a lenient deal after pleading
guilty to strangling a Knoxville gay-rights activist was sentenced to one year
in jail. Chad Allen Conyers, 32, of Virginia Beach also will serve three years’ probation
in the April 2002 slaying of Joseph Camber, Knox County Criminal Court Judge
Richard Baumgartner ruled last week. Prosecutors sought a six-year sentence
for Conyers, who was accused of strangling Camber, 36, after the two left a
gay nightclub in Knoxville. Charged with second-degree murder, Conyers pleaded
guilty to voluntary manslaughter in a deal that netted him a four-year term
but no jail time. Four months later, he was arrested on a “peeping tom” violation
in an undercover sting operation in a Virginia Beach department store. Prosecutors
argued the deal was revoked by the arrest, though he was cleared of the peeping
tom charge. But Baumgartner said he had to honor the plea deal.
HOUSTON — Police arrested Paul Chance Dillon, one of 10 teenagers from
suburban Houston’s Woodlands area who was convicted and later paroled
in the 1991 gay-bashing death of Paul Broussard, late last week after a tip
to Crime Stoppers, the Houston Chronicle reported. Police sought Dillon after
he missed a Nov. 25 meeting with his parole officer, the Chronicle reported.
Taken to the Harris County Jail, Dillon, 34, will be held without bond pending
a hearing in the case, the newspaper reported. Dillon and nine other students
or former students at McCullough High School in the Woodlands were convicted
in Broussard’s death after they drove to the primarily gay neighborhood
of Montrose on July 4, 1991, looking for gays to harass, according to media
reports. The teens attacked Broussard and two friends as they left a gay bar;
Broussard was beaten and stabbed to death. Dillon was sentenced to 20 years
in prison, but released early due to mandatory release rules that later were
abolished, the Chronicle reported.
COLVILLE, Wash. (AP) — A Stevens County jury has convicted a man of killing
two men in their cabin last year. After a two-week trial, the jury deliberated
for about three hours before convicting Richard L. Keenum, 32, of two counts
of first-degree murder. With prior convictions in California and Idaho, Keenum
faces a sentence ranging from 52 1/2 to nearly 67 years in prison. State law
requires him to serve at least 50 years. Use of a firearm will add 10 years
to Keenum’s sentence. The jury rejected Keenum’s defense that he
found Matthew L. Raynor, 32, and his partner, Russell C. “Mark” Markvardsen,
52, dead when he arrived to burglarize their home last October. Prosecutor
Jerry Wetle said the men were killed “execution-style,” shot in
the back of the head after being wounded. No motive was suggested for the slayings,
but several witnesses said Keenum had made comments about disliking gays.
PHILADELPHIA — Police do not believe a hate crime was committed by a
man arrested last week and charged with throwing bricks through the windows
of the Philadelphia Gay News office in Society Hill, the Philadelphia Inquirer
reported. Keith Cooper, 42, of Powelton was charged with vandalism, police
said, for allegedly throwing several bricks that shattered two front windows
and glass in the front door of the newspaper office about 6 a.m. last week,
the Inquirer reported. Police were notified of the vandalism by a witness,
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