The last of four
men charged with plotting to rob a gay Brooklyn man and
causing his traffic-related death pleaded guilty on Monday
to manslaughter and attempted robbery as hate crimes,
according to The New York Times. Ilya Shurov, 21,
agreed to serve 17-1/2 years in prison. Prosecutors,
in return, dropped charges of felony murder as a hate
crime, an offense that can be punished with a life
sentence. “If there was no life sentence, we would
have rolled the dice,” defense attorney Hermann
P. Walz told the Times.
The last of four
men charged with plotting to rob a gay Brooklyn man and
causing his traffic-related death pleaded guilty on Monday
to manslaughter and attempted robbery as hate crimes,
according to The New York Times.
Ilya Shurov, 21,
agreed to serve 17-1/2 years in prison. Prosecutors, in
return, dropped charges of felony murder as a hate crime, an
offense that can be punished with a life sentence.
“If there
were no life sentence, we would have rolled the
dice,” defense attorney Hermann P. Walz told
the Times.
Shurov and three
other young men -- Gary Timmins, John Fox, and Anthony
Fortunato -- were accused of luring 29-year-old Michael J.
Sandy into an isolated lot on October 8, 2006. After
he was beaten, Sandy fled into parkway traffic. A car
struck him, and he later died of his injuries.
Of the four men,
only Shurov was charged with an act of physical
violence. In an earlier trial, witnesses said Shurov hid
behind a sand dune, jumped out at Sandy, and proceeded
to punch him.
Defense attorneys
argued in pretrial hearings that their clients’
actions were not hot crimes because they harbored no
animosity toward gays.
“[Shurov]
might have had a reasonable chance of beating the hate
crime, but he had less of a chance of beating felony
murder,” Walz told the Times.
“He’s definitely culpable of the actual
death. His actions, more than anybody else's, caused this
person to die.” (The Advocate)
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