By LOU CHIBBARO JR, Washington Blade
Dec 10 2008, 2:25 PM |
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A gay man is expected to stand trial early next year for hitting someone he believed was a gay basher over the head with a plate at a restaurant in Georgetown after the person allegedly rushed toward him while screaming anti-gay names.
Robert Wilson, 56, a Capitol Hill resident, was charged with assault in the April 8 incident at the Bistro Francais Restaurant on M Street, N.W., that his attorney has called a miscarriage of justice.
“Robert was the victim in this case,” said attorney Todd Baldwin. “He acted in self-defense.”
But D.C. police and the United States Attorney’s office, which is prosecuting the case, have said in court papers that Ted Dixon, the man Wilson struck with the plate, is the victim in the case because he sustained a head injury as a result of Wilson’s action.
Police have also pointed to Wilson’s decision to leave the scene of the incident by car before police arrived, a development they say indicated he may have attempted to flee.
Wilson, however, said he left the scene because he didn’t want to become further involved in a violent incident, and told friends who were with him at the restaurant that he planned to return to the scene after police arrived.
Channing Phillips, a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s office, said he could not comment on the open case.
Acting Lt. Brett Parson, who oversees the police Gay & Lesbian Liaison Unit, said the GLLU was aware of the incident but he and other police officials also could not comment on it.
Wilson said the incident began when he and four friends were finishing a late dinner at about 2 a.m. at the Bistro Francais.
He said he stood to leave the table while talking to his friends when
two men who had been sitting at a table on the opposite side of the
restaurant walked toward the exit.
Suddenly, according to Wilson, the two men walked back into the main part of the restaurant, with one of them shouting obscenities and anti-gay names at him and his friends.
“They came running at us,” Wilson said. “I think one of them said they would throw us through the window.”
Wilson said he and his friends had been sitting at a table in front of the restaurant’s front window in a confined area on a raised platform.
“I was cornered between the wall and the window,” Wilson said. “I had nowhere to go and these guys are charging at me with their arms raised,” he said.
Wilson said he grabbed a plate from the table and hit one of the two men in the head.
“He was literally in my face,” Wilson said.
Court records identify the man struck by Wilson as Ted Dixon; he could not immediately be reached for comment.
Baldwin said the friends sitting with Wilson witnessed the incident and confirmed Wilson’s account of events.
But a police affidavit filed in court says a witness, whose identity police are withholding, reported seeing Wilson and Dixon engaged “in a verbal altercation” at the restaurant.
The affidavit says the witness reported that “while standing about ten feet” from Dixon, Wilson “flung a plate at him, striking him in the head, causing a severe laceration.” The witness told police that Wilson then left the restaurant on foot, according to the affidavit.
Baldwin characterized as “absurd” the claim that Wilson flung the plate a distance of 10 feet.
The police affidavit says that Wilson called the restaurant to find out whether police had arrived, and a restaurant employee put a detective on the phone with Wilson. The detective told Wilson to remain where he was and police officers arrested him.
Baldwin said a judge later dropped the assault charge filed against Wilson “without prejudice” after the government requested a delay in the start of a trial in July.
About two months later, Wilson said the U.S. Attorney’s office informed him it was reinstating the charge. A status hearing is scheduled for Jan. 5.
Baldwin said that Assistant U.S. Attorney Darryl Fox, who is prosecuting the case, told him he was “not at all interested” in the accounts that Wilson’s friends could provide.
“He said, ‘I don’t need to talk to any more witnesses,’” Baldwin said. “He said, ‘I have a victim who was injured and I have a defendant who fled the scene.’”
Chris Ferris, co-chair of Gays and Lesbians Opposing Violence, which monitors police handling of cases of anti-gay violence, questioned Fox’s handling of the case.
“Can we trust the U.S. Attorney’s office?” Ferris said.
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