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| The man who admitted to fatally stabbing Sakia Gunn, a 15-year-old
lesbian, in downtown Newark, N.J., in May 2003 was sentenced last week to 20 years
in prison.
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NEWARK, N.J. (AP) — A man who admitted fatally
stabbing a 15-year-old lesbian during a confrontation on a downtown street was
sentenced last week to 20 years in prison. Richard McCullough had faced up to
30 years after pleading guilty last month to aggravated manslaughter, aggravated
assault and bias intimidation. McCullough, 30, had been charged with bias murder
in the May 2003 killing of Sakia Gunn, but that charge was dropped as part of
a plea bargain. Gunn and four other girls were waiting for a bus in downtown Newark
when McCullough and another man drove up and asked them if they wanted to go to
a party. Officials said the females responded that they were lesbians and were
not interested. The men began spewing homophobic insults and a fight began, authorities
said. Gunn was stabbed as she came to the defense of a friend.
SEATTLE — Three men were sentenced to a
year in prison last week for an attack against a gay man last June, the Seattle
Times reported. Russian immigrants David Kravchenko, 20, and Yevgeniy Savchak,
18, could face deportation for their role in the crime they committed with Vadim
Samusenko, 21, according to statements made in court, the Times reported. A
King County Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Ramsdell sentenced the trio, who he
said were “fueled by alcohol, testosterone and, quite frankly, stupidity,”
when they assaulted Micah Painter because of his sexual orientation, according
to the Times. The three were convicted in March of assault and malicious harassment,
a hate crime, in the June 27, 2004, attack on Painter, the Times reported. Police
said the trio saw Painter walking down the street, yelled insults and slurs
at him, then stopped and assaulted him after Painter, 24, responded with a rude
hand gesture, the Times reported.
CAMDEN, N.J. (AP) — For most of the 10 years
since she killed two law enforcement officers during a standoff, Leslie Ann
Nelson has been where she is now — in prison, waiting for a trial where
a jury will decide whether she should be executed. Twice before, juries have
said Nelson, a transgendered go-go dancer who was known as Glenn Nelson before
a 1992 sex-change operation, should be put to death. And both times, the state
Supreme Court has ruled that the death sentence should be overturned because
of the way prosecutors handled the case. Her third trial could be different
from those in 1997 and 2001: This time, she wants to represent herself in court.
Judge Samuel D. Natal last week said he needed a report from a psychiatrist
before he would rule on Nelson’s request. The judge recounted Nelson’s
history of psychiatric problems, including a borderline personality and her
decision to have sex-reassignment surgery in 1992 even though she had not previously
felt like a “woman trapped in a man’s body.”
NEW YORK — The National Coalition of anti-Violence
Programs this week released its report on hate violence against lesbian, gay,
bisexual and transgendered people, listing nearly 5,000 victims reported in
2004, the coalition said in a news release. The group’s 2004 report includes
data and analysis on anti-gay hate crime incidents, victims and offenders, plus
information on law enforcement response and attitudes in 11 major areas across
the nation, according to the release. Those areas include Chicago, Houston,
Massachusetts, the New York City area, Pennsylvania, and the San Francisco Bay
area, according to the coalition media statement. “This year’s report
is in many ways a follow-up to last year’s in which it became all too
clear that … [gays] had entered a very new, and very dangerous era in
which all of us were under attack at levels not seen in recent times,”
said Clarence Patton, the group’s acting executive director, in the release.
NCAVP claims that reports of anti-gay violence rose last year over 2003 by 26
percent, the coalition stated.
NEPAL — A human rights watchdog organization
reported last week that police in Kathmandu attacked a ...
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