WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 12, 2005

D.A. BROWN: CO-DEFENDANT IN HOWARD BEACH BIAS ATTACK ADMITS GUILT
To Be Sentenced to Two Years in Prison

Queens District Attorney Richard A. Brown today announced that one of the defendants charged in a racially motivated baseball bat attack last summer in Howard Beach that critically injured a young black man has admitted his guilt and will be sentenced to serve two years in state prison. His co-defendant – the alleged prime mover in the attack – remains in prison awaiting trial.

The District Attorney identified the defendant who pled guilty today as Anthony Ench, 22, of 156-16 77th Street in Howard Beach, Queens. He pleaded guilty to Attempted Robbery in the Second Degree, a Class D violent felony, and Attempted Assault in the Second Degree as a Hate Crime, a Class D felony, before Acting Supreme Court Justice Robert M. Raciti, who indicated that he would sentence the defendant to concurrent determinant terms of two years and one year, respectively, on October 28, 2005.

District Attorney Brown said, “The defendant has admitted that he took part in a heinous, cowardly and hate motivated crime that left a young man seriously injured. Attacks predicated upon hate are a threat to the safety and welfare of all. They disrupt entire communities and cannot be tolerated by a civilized society. When they do, regrettably, occur, those responsible must be brought to justice."

District Attorney Brown said that defendant Ench admitted that at approximately 3:30 a.m. on June 29, 2005, at 160th Avenue and 78th Street in Howard Beach, he participated in the beating of Glenn Moore, 22, during which time racial epithets were used, by kicking and punching him after he had been clubbed by his co-defendant and that during the attack he stole the victim’s sneakers.

District Attorney identified Ench’s co-defendant as Nicholas Minucci, 19, of 156-45 78th Street in Howard Beach, Queens, who is accused of beating his victim with an aluminum bat, causing the victim to sustain a fractured skull and other injuries. During the attack, racial slurs were allegedly uttered. Members of the New York City Police Department’s Hate Crimes Unit arrested Minucci about 11 hours after the attack on a nearby street in Howard Beach as he was driving a 2005 Cadillac Escalade that he allegedly used in the attack.

Minucci has been charged with Assault in the First and Second Degree as a Hate Crime, Robbery in the First and Second Degree as a Hate Crime and Criminal Possession of a Weapon in the Fourth Degree. He faces a sentence of up to 25 years in prison if convicted and remains incarcerated awaiting trial.

Both the Ench and Minucci cases are 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.

District Attorney Brown expressed his appreciation to the members of the New York City Police Department’s Hate Crimes Unit for their assistance in the investigation and prosecution of this case.