January 23, 2011
12-Year Sentence for Brutal NYC Gay Bashing
Steve Weinstein READ TIME: 1 MIN.
Daniel Rodriguez was sentenced to 12 years in prison for the vicious attack of a gay man in Oct. 2009 in College Point, a rough-and-tumble neighborhood in the New York City Borough of Queens. Rodriguez pleaded guilty last year to first-degree robbery as a hate crime.
As reported here, co-assailant Daniel Aleman received a sentence of eight years for his part in the brutal beating.
Aleman, 27, and Daniel Rodriguez, 22, carried out the assault. The two men set upon 50-year-old Jack Price when Price stepped out of a deli early in the morning on Oct. 8, 2009. The attackers shouted anti-gay epithets as they punched and kicked Price, delivering a beating so severe that the older man spent weeks in the hospital with serious injuries, including a broken jaw, a punctured lung, and a lacerated spleen.
The two attackers then stole Price's wallet. Aleman addressed the court at his Dec. 13 sentencing, saying that he was drunk at the time of the attack and robbery.
The story sparked a rally against hate crimes --�where some of the assailant's friends taunted marchers and defended the two men. The attack was one of a spate on gay men throughout New York City.
Rodriguez told local TV outlet NY1 that he believed the sentence was "fair" and is relieved that everything is over.
Except, that is, for Price, who remains with permanent physical damage from the attack.
Steve Weinstein has been a regular correspondent for the International Herald Tribune, the Advocate, the Village Voice and Out. He has been covering the AIDS crisis since the early '80s, when he began his career. He is the author of "The Q Guide to Fire Island" (Alyson, 2007).
