Sep 21, 2007   | COMMENTS     

SEA CLIFF, N.Y. (AP) — A former contestant on Bravo’s “Top Chef” was beaten by attackers yelling anti-gay slurs, her lawyer said. Josie Smith-Malave, who was featured on the second season of the reality show, was among a small group of women who were asked to leave a Sea Cliff bar over Labor Day weekend, lawyer Yetta Kurland said last week. About 12 young people followed the women and began screaming anti-gay epithets, spitting on them and then beating them, Kurland said. Smith-Malave, who is in her early 30s, is openly gay. A homeless man was charged with participating in the attack, police said. Matthew Walli was in the group involved, and made derogatory statements about the women’s perceived sexual orientation, spat on them and hit them, police said. Walli stole a video camera from one of the women, causing her to fall and hurt her knee, they said. Walli, 20, was arrested on Sept. 12. He was charged with robbery as a bias crime, which is punishable by as many as 15 years in prison upon conviction, and was arraigned the next day, police said. He is from Oregon but is homeless in New York and was being held at the county jail, they said.

Provincetown activists claim local police indifferent about hate crime

PROVINCETOWN, Mass. —  The Anti-Violence Project in Provincetown, Mass., is concerned that police there are not conducting an active criminal investigation of an alleged anti-gay hate crime that occurred near Spiritus Pizza on the morning of Sept. 10 and left a New Bedford man bloodied, lacerated, bruised and unconscious on the beach, according to a report from the Project. The victim remembers leaving Spiritus Pizza, a popular late-night gay gathering spot, shortly after midnight. He claims to have seen three men who he says attacked him with a blunt object from behind and blacked out. The last thing he told Project members he remembers hearing is the word “faggot.” He was discovered unconscious on Town Beach at 3 a.m., suffering severe head and facial trauma and partial memory loss, the Project said. Provincetown Police Chief Warren Tobias, though, told the Blade there is “a substantial amount of misinformation” surrounding the incident. Tobias said there is no evidence that the attack was a hate crime and that the victim has not said anything to police to indicate it was. Nothing in the police report indicates the man was called a faggot, Tobias said. “Apparently this victim is making statements he hasn’t told us,” Tobias said. He also said the victim received medical care but refused to go to the hospital. “There’s been lots of untruths about this and we’re taking the brunt of it,” Tobias said. “I assure you, though, we’re doing our job.”

Guilty plea entered in gay Alabama murder case

BAY MINETTE, Ala. (AP) — An Alabama woman pleaded guilty last week to a charge of conspiracy to commit murder for her part in a 2004 slaying of a gay teen. Nichol Bryars Kelsay was sentenced to 20 years in jail. Kelsay, 21, had no comment to the judge at sentencing, Baldwin County District Attorney Judy Newcomb said. Kelsay also didn’t respond when the victim’s mother asked her why she did it, Newcomb said. The victim, Scotty Joe Weaver, 18, had been friends with Kelsay since first grade and at one point had asked her to marry him. Kelsay’s boyfriend, Christopher Ryan Gaines, objected. The couple plotted Weaver’s death, according to Baldwin County prosecutors. They enlisted Robert Holly Lofton Porter in the murder scheme. Porter told authorities he didn’t like Weaver because he was gay. Prosecutors allege Weaver was robbed of about $80, strangled and beaten inside his Bay Minette, Ala., trailer in mid-July 2004. His burned and mutilated body was found in a field a few miles away. Gaines, now 23, pleaded guilty in May to capital murder and received life without parole, avoiding a potential death sentence. Two weeks ago, Porter, 21, pleaded guilty to intentional murder and first-degree robbery and was ordered to serve two consecutive life sentences.

Vanderbilt plans multi-pronged outreach effort after gay attack

NASHVILLE — Vanderbilt’s University’s response to an alleged hate crime assault should be “broad and multifaceted,” according to Mark Bandas, dean of students at the school, according to a report in the Vanderbilt Hustler, the college’s student newspaper. Details of the assault weren’t available but it may have inspired pervasive change on campus. “We must move beyond ...