Jun 19, 2009  |  By: Joshua Lynsen  | COMMENTS     

Jonathan Howard struggles to accept the sentence his attacker received.

“I find it really hard to wrap it around nine counts — including four civil rights violations — and not going to jail,” he said. “It was an unprovoked attack based on hate and he’s not going to jail.”

Howard, who lives in Adams Morgan, was one of three gay men attacked in August 2008 as they walked through Boston’s South End. A bisexual female friend also was injured in the attack, which was prosecuted as an anti-gay hate crime.

The lone man identified and charged among those involved in the attack, 29-year-old Fabio Brandao of Framingham, Mass., pleaded guilty last month to kicking and hitting the men while using homophobic slurs. He received a two-year suspended sentence.

Howard said he understands there were “mitigating circumstances” that lessened the penalty, such as Brandao’s previously clean record, but he fears the sentence sends a bad message.

“So the first time you beat someone up because of who they are, it’s OK, you won’t go to jail,” Howard said. “Whether it’s the first, second or third time, I still feel you should be going to jail for something as violent as what happened.”

Gay activists in Boston agree. That’s why they planned to protest Brandao’s sentence Thursday outside Boston Municipal Court.

“That will make quite an impact with the court,” said Don Gorton, who’s gay and leads the Anti-Violence Project of Massachusetts. “They’re not used to seeing picketers out front. It’s rare that people take a stand like we are.”

Gorton said he and other protesters who were “outraged” by Brandao’s sentence hope to secure tougher penalties for future convicts to deter “gay bashers or potential gay bashers.”

Howard noted that the protest and renewed media attention it brings to his case isn’t intended to elicit sympathy.

“I don’t want people to feel sorry for me,” he said. “I want people to take a look at [what happened] and see what they can do so it doesn’t happen again.”

In his case, Howard said a blackout prevents him from remembering details of the assault, but his friends told him how the attackers hit and kicked the group.

“They called us ‘fucking faggots,’” Howard said. “Apparently, while they were kicking me in the head, they said, ‘Die, faggot, die.’”

Howard, who escaped with bruises and a concussion, said he was “very lucky that I didn’t have more substantial injuries.” He was out of the hospital within a day, but his mental scars lingered.

Howard’s boyfriend, Georgetown University psychologist Gregory Jones, said Howard experienced flashbacks and nightmares for months following the attack, but they subsided as time passed.

“I think, all things considered, he’s been doing OK,” Jones said. “It really had the potential to be much more detrimental to his life, but he tried to adopt a healthy outlook and that helped him to cope with the situation.”

Jones said Howard used his blog — Stuff on My Mind, at jrh456.blogspot.com — to help process his emotions.

“He used his blog as a form of therapy, and that writing for him was really helpful,” Jones said. “And I guess it helped having a psychologist as a boyfriend.”

Howard said although he’s improved, there are some aspects to what happened that he’ll never be able to fully process.

“I write a lot to work through what’s in my head, just to try to get a grasp on it, but it still won’t ever make sense to me,” Howard said. “But I just try and deal with it.”