Some good news for the morning! The four youths accused of brutally beating Kevin Aviance last summer have all pleaded guilty. Aviance (pictured from a photo shoot mere hours before the attack) had been leaving popular New York bar, The Phoenix, when a quartet of queer bullies threw garbage bags and a paint can at him before launching an attack that left the singer with a broken jaw, injured knee and other scrapes and scratches.

Appearing in Manhattan's court yesterday, 21-year old Akino George and Jarell Seares both pleaded guilty to first-degree gang assault and will both spend eight lovely years behind bars, with five years of parole supervision. Gregory Archie, 19, fessed up to second-degree assault as a hate crime, thus earning six years in the slammer and three years of post-release supervision. Meanwhile, the youngest of the thugs, 17-year old Gerard Johnson, pleaded guilty to first-degree assault as a hate crime and will have 15 long years to think about what he's done. But, it could be worse: had the men refused to cooperate and were later found guilty, they would have faced twenty-five years in prison.

In the days following his attack, while lesser men may be cowering at home, Aviance led anti-violence protesters down New York's streets and insisted:

We can't fight any of these people with arms and bullets and drama. We have to fight all these people with love, every single day.

Four Guilty In Kevin Aviance Gay Bashing [365 Gay]
4 plead guilty in gay bias attack on singer in New York City [International Herald Tribune]