Friday, July 1, 2005

D.A. BROWN: SECOND DEFENDANT CHARGED IN HOWARD BEACH ALLEGED BIAS ATTACK; ALLEGEDLY KICKED VICTIM AND TOOK HIS SNEAKERS

Queens District Attorney Richard A. Brown today announced that a second defendant has been charged with assault and robbery as hate crimes in an alleged bias-related attack on a street in Howard Beach early last Wednesday morning in which the victim was severely beaten with an aluminum bat and sustained a fractured skull and other injuries.

District Attorney Brown said, “The defendant is alleged to have acted together with a previously charged defendant and to have kicked the victim and taken his sneakers in a hate-crime attack during which racial epithets were uttered. The victim remains hospitalized. Crimes of hate will never be tolerated in Queens County. When they do, regrettably, occur, they will be aggressively investigated, vigorously prosecuted and severely punished.”

The District Attorney identified the defendant as Anthony Ench, 21, of 156-16 77th Street in Howard Beach, Queens who has been charged with Assault in the First and Second Degree as a Hate Crime and Robbery in the First and Second Degree as a Hate Crime and faces a determinate sentence of between eight and 25 years if convicted.

District Attorney Brown said that according to the criminal charges the defendant along with the previously charged defendant, Nicholas Minucci, 19, attacked the victim, Glenn Moore, 22, early Wednesday morning about 3:30 a.m. at 160th Avenue and 78th Street in Howard Beach and that defendant Ench kicked the victim and took his sneakers. It is further alleged that the alleged assailants uttered racial slurs during the incident.

The District Attorney said that defendant Ench was arrested yesterday by detectives of the New York City Police Department’s Hate Crimes Task Force.

The defendant was arraigned in Queens Criminal Court earlier today before Judge Lenora Gerald who remanded him without bail and set a return date of July 20, 2005.

The case is being prosecuted by Assistant District Attorney Brian E. Kohm of the District Attorney’s Gang Violence and Hate Crimes Bureau under the supervision of Assistant District Attorney Mariela Palomino Herring, Bureau Chief, and Robert J. Hanophy, Deputy Bureau Chief, and the overall supervision of Senior Executive Assistant District Attorney for Trials James C. Quinn and Deputy Executive Assistant District Attorney for Trials John H. Larsen.

It should be noted that criminal charges are merely an accusation and that a defendant is presumed innocent until proven guilty.