NY Bisexual Man Loses Appeal of Hate Crime Conviction in Killing of Gay Man

A Brooklyn appellate court has upheld the manslaughter-as-a-hate-crime conviction of Anthony Fortunato, a 21-year-old bisexual man who lured a gay man to his death in 2006. Mr. Fortunato met the victim, Michael Sandy, in an Internet chat room and coaxed him to come to Sheepshead Bay Beach, where two of Mr. Fortunato's friends intended to rob him. However, Mr. Sandy fled from his attackers and was struck and killed by a car on the Belt Parkway.

Before his 2007 trial, Mr. Fortunato contended that the crime should not be charged as a hate crime, which carried a longer mandatory sentence, as he himself was "at least" bisexual. Supreme Court Justice Jill Konviser-Levine disagreed and allowed the charge to stand. Mr. Fortunato was convicted by a reluctant jury—the foreman later told a reporter, "None of us wanted hate crime . . . We were crying in the room." Mr. Fortunato was sentenced to 7 to 21 years in prison.

Last week, the Appellate Division, Second Department, upheld the conviction, without reference to the hate-crime dispute, one of the key arguments on appeal. "[V]iewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, we find that it was legally sufficient to establish the defendant's guilt of that crime beyond a reasonable doubt," the panel held in an unsigned decision in People v. Fortunato, 8607/06.