Avowed Satanist beaten in NY for his beliefs

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

http://villagevoice.com/news/0511,lombardi,62074,6.html

"If you saw Daniel Romano on the street today, you might think, hey, average young guy—good-looking and a little stylish, maybe, but not remarkable. Yet this average young guy from Middle Village, Queens, has never been one for blending in, at least not before January 9, when he says two local teenagers got out of a car and beat him with a metal pipe and an ice scraper for being an avowed Satanist in an Italian Catholic neighborhood.

Gone are the blue hair and black nail polish, though he still wears a black fedora and an inverted crucifix. On a recent Tuesday, with his hair newly shaved, Romano, 20, blended in with the kids who waved and called out, "Hey, Danny!" at the corner of 72nd Street and 60th Avenue. That's where the incident Queens prosecutors are calling a hate crime took place.

Today, the only visible reminder of the alleged attack—or, as the defense lawyers are arguing, a classic fight over a bad debt—is the red scar behind Romano's left ear. Romano says he can't easily forget how the teens harassed and then jumped him. And he won't forget, he says, how they pummeled him so hard he needed 12 stitches to his head.

"Not for nothing I got whacked in my head," he says, taking in the scene of modest houses and tidy lawns. "Now I look over my shoulder more."'

[Modem Butterfly]

1. Yikes!

Now THAT'S persecution. This kid isn't having to deal with people criticizing his religion, he's having to deal with being assaulted.

Man, human beings sure can suck sometimes.

[Walt Starr]

2. But, but, but, him being a Satanist is PERSECUTION

of fundies.

:eyes:

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

3. indeed

[johnnie]

4. How come his satan didn't save him?

:evilgrin:

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

5. It is written "Do not put thy lord to the test"

[johnnie]

6. I have never read The Satanic Bible

I have no idea what it says.

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

7. Thats actually from the Christian one but then again I guess

its all about your point of view. :evilgrin:

[_TJ_]

17. I have a copy of the satanic bible

It basically says to look out for yourself and f*ck everyone
else. No mercy for the weak - to the victor the spoils etc.

In fact it reads much like a right-wing manifesto. Ironic since
right-wingers are the first to attack satanism :)

(BTW I am not a member of the church of satan)

[not systems]

22. If you did you would find out any thing about Satanism...

it is a libertine libertarian tract with black clothing.

[Zynx]

8. No offense, but was he trying to get his ass kicked?

Walking around a Italian/Sicilian Catholic neighborhood dressed as a worshiper of Satan strikes me as a Darwin candidate.

He shouldn't have been beat up, but he should have expected something like this might happen, and probably should have been a little less...provacative.

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

9. No offense taken. I don't know. It's not like gang colors

It's his religion. You could have a point but it's still pretty fucked up.

[Zynx]

12. Blue hair and black nail polish are religious beliefs???

I don't know anything about Satanism, nor do I particularly want to, but is one required to advertise on the street? :shrug:

[GiovanniC]

20. You're Right, People Should Not Attract Attention to Themselves

Unless they want the everlasting piss beaten out of them.

Would you be making this argument if a bunch of Muslim teenagers beat a Baptist wearing a cross? Would you make this argument if some skinheads beat the shit out of a Jew for wearing a Star of David? What about some guy in New Mexico beating the hell out of a "raghead"?

Were they just asking for it?

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

21. Of course not but he feels it was his Satanism that caused

the beating. Not all people who dress that way are Satanists

[redqueen]

23. What country am I living in?

:wtf:

[Modem Butterfly]

10. Yeah! And wearing that short little skirt to a bar...

He was just asking to get raped!

:eyes:

[Zynx]

13. In a bar, no. Certain neighborhoods in most cities, hell yes.

I can think of a half dozen areas off the top of my head in Milwaukee, which is hardly an overly dangerous city in general, where a woman shouldn't be walking alone at night, period, nevermind how she's dressed or what her race is.

Hell, I'm a physically fit young adult white male, and I'm not just going to go walk down the street in neighborhoods of this city that are almost entirely non-white and are dominated by street gangs of the respective ethnicity.

I certainly wouldn't do it wearing anti-black or anti-Hispanic articles of clothing such as Nazi armbands or KKK badges, or dragging a Latin Kings flag behind one of my shoes or something like that.

I'm very tolerent, but people need to get a brain. People *shouldn't* have to be afraid of certain areas in cities, but pretending that there is no need to as the cities and the populations in them currently exist is just idiotic.

[Walt Starr]

11. In that case, shouldn't anybody wearing a crucifix walking in a Muslim

neighborhood expect to get their ass kicked?

[Zynx]

14. In the US, no.

But I wouldn't want to try it in a place like Saudi Arabia or Pakistan or Yeman. Not only might I get assaulted, I might very well get killed or kidnapped.

[immoderate]

16. Can you spell, "Blame the victim?"

Yep, those Italian Catholics are mighty dangerous.

--IMM

[johnnie]

18. You have to understand that it is the American way now

We are out to fight "evil". The president says that is what we are supposed to do and the kids just did what their leader told them is the right thing.

[johnnie]

15. They probably do

It's nice to think we can live in some sort of Nirvana, but people are shits. That's the way it is.

[not systems]

24. Umm... your wrong...

by your logic being black in an all white neighbor hood
or being a transsexual in a small town would also make one a
"Darwin candidate".

Being white in a black neighborhood or a Harri Krishna in a
fundie town would also be beating offenses that can be
dismissed with a simple they were asking for it.

Be "provocative" doesn't justify violence.

[Minstrel Boy]

19. This may not have been a hate crime. There is another motive.

The defence attorney: "The dispute would have occurred whether he was a Satan worshipper or black or Asian, because the parties know each other and had a fight over money. Is an alleged crime automatically a hate crime because the victim happens to be a Satanist?"

More from the link:

On January 31, Paul Rotondi and Frank Scarpinito, boyish-looking 18-year-olds, returned to Queens Criminal Court, accompanied by their parents. Queens District Attorney Richard Brown has said the teens harassed and then jumped Daniel Romano, 20, also of Middle Village, because the atheist-oriented Satanist "was different from them." But in exchange for a guilty plea, the D.A.'s office proposed a sentence of one year, a fraction of the punishment for a bias-related crime.

Perhaps unwilling to say so directly, prosecutors appear willing to drop the hate charge. "It's accurate to infer that from the offer, yes," says spokesperson Patrick Clark. Still, the two men have refused the deal. Queens attorney Richard Leff, who represents Scarpinito, declined to comment. Sean McNicholas, Rotondi's lawyer, explains his client rejected it because prosecutors "said the plea was admitting guilt to the top charge," which he took to mean assault as a hate crime. "Maybe I misunderstood it," he adds, "but my client isn't about to admit having committed a hate crime."

Even so, McNicholas suggests his client would have passed on the offer regardless because the case "never should have been classified a hate crime." The threat of the special status not only raises the stakes in a possible trial—hiking the maximum sentence from seven to 15 years—but also hikes the prosecutors' power in negotiations. A year of hard time strikes McNicholas as "stringent" for his client, whom he paints as a decent young man facing his first offense.

"If my client were a racist thug who assaulted this person purely because of his Satan-worshipping views, I'd have told him, 'Jump on the offer because you're lucky you're only getting a year,' " he says. "But that's not the truth."

[redqueen]

25. heh... that figures.

MONEY!

[Jesus Saves]

26. I have a feeling there's more to this story

As the article indicates, money may have been involved.