HATE CRIMES

Man Who Beat Disabled Brother To “Push The Gay Out Of Him” Gets Prison Time

brotherA judge in Lancaster, Ohio has sentenced 38-year-old Lawrence L. Featheroff to 30 months in prison for beating, terrorizing, and threatening to slice off the genitals of his developmentally disabled brother after he reveaeld that he might be gay last year.

Featheroff plead guilty to attempted complicity to commit felonious assault and abduction, claiming that he “wanted to toughen [his brother] up to push the gay out of him and make him a normal person.”

Featheroff’s 26-year-old brother, Jason A. Meyers began living with his brother, his brother’s girlfriend and an aunt and uncle after he had been abused in a group home. According to detectives, Meyers “is developmentally disabled but reasonably high functioning,” and was placed in the sole custody of his brother. The extended family lived about 30 miles from Columbus, one of the most gay-friendly cities in the Midwest.

Meyers told investigators a number of horrific stories, including times that Featheroff had “hit him repeatedly,” “allowed him to eat only once a day,” “made him run up and down a hill carrying a heavy railroad tie,” and “held a butcher knife under his genitals and threatened to cut them off.” When police visited the family’s home in January, they discovered Meyers with a concussion, a sprained ankle and bruises on his face and around his eye.

Featheroff reportedly inflicted the physical and emotional trauma after Meyers told him last year that he “had sexual thoughts about men and boys.”

Since the trial began, Meyers has been living in adult foster care.

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