A teen was arrested and charged with a hate crime after he allegedly kept a 50-year-old gay man captive in a basement for four days, beating and starving him.
The alleged victim, Otoni Eliseu, was discovered after someone called in a police report about a man being beaten with a bat.
Now Jackson Sugrue, 19, of the Boston suburb of Framingham, is facing a hate crime charge. Eliseu says Sugrue screamed homophobic slurs as Sugrue beat him.
When police arrived at the scene, Eliseu was lying on the ground covered in blood and bruises, wearing only a pair of pants.
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Eliseu was reportedly living in the woods and was staying in the local church basement. The two men had used crack before Sugrue turned violent.
“On Saturday,” reports Boston 25, “the prosecution alleges Sugrue pulled Eliseu from his bed onto the floor and began attacking him repeatedly by stepping on his throat and choking him. Eliseu claims it was a hate crime because he is gay.”
“He attacked me on my back, on my butt, [saying] ‘you’re gay, you like me,’” said Eliseu.
Sugrue’s attorney, Kenneth Gross, claims Sugrue was the real victim.
“[Eliseu] was trying to entice my client to do things that were against his nature,” Gross said.
“My son is a victim of a 50-year-old man,” said Terry Sugrue, the father of the alleged attacker.
“This is someone we tried to help,” he added. “He became obsessed with my son.”
Watch the Boston 25 report below:
Chrisk
The guy reminds me of Lord Ramsay Bolton on The Game of Thrones.
I see they’re using the gay Panic defense. Kind of hard to do though would you imprisoned and tortured a guy for 4 days. Doesn’t show much fear to me.
Christopher
He is in Massachusetts that defense won’t fly in the courts. That won’t stop the lawyer but when Ellsue has his chance on the stand and tells his side, that defense will crumble. I am hoping they throw the book at the kid, yes it will ruin his life but I have a feeling if he kept Ellsue any longer he would of killed him.
PLAYS WELL WITH OTHERS
Good looking guy like that gonna be on receiving “end” if he winds up in prison….
happiness17
If the courts do their job and convict him he won’t do well in jail or prison. At
19 and being good looking this guy will be prime material for the other inmates. He’ll be passed around by the inmates. They may even put a dress and make up on him.
Kangol
Wow, so this little crack-smoking creep imprisons a homeless man, beats the man to a pulp while yelling gay slurs, yet claims HE is the victim? Uh, no. So many things here that should lead to a nice, long sentence, but let’s see if Sugrue being a young white suburbanite using a gay panic defense gets him off the hook.
Tombear
Oh please, the kid will get a slap on the hand if anything. MASS is know for giving light sentences for horrendous crimes!
strix1
While no one should be tortured and held against their will…listening to the interview, and reading this article, it seems like there may be more to this story. Let this be a lesson, say no to drugs and don’t take shelter with a young crackhead!
scotty
masshole.
Sam6969
There is clearly more to the story.
“Eliseu was reportedly living in the woods and was staying in the local church basement. The two men had used crack before Sugrue turned violent.”
So Eliseu, who is gay, invited a young man (a teen) in the basement of the church to take crack.
Sugrue says Eliseu enticed him to have sex and he responded violently and out of revenge.
Some think Eliseu was the predator and was beaten for that, while others, including the story telling in the media, say Elisey was the victim of a hate crime.
There is a probability for it not to be a clear case (shared responsibility) and certainly not as clear as it looks in the media. Hopefully, investigation will clear all that up, as the life of a young man is at stake in this severe US justice system.
ShowMeGuy
Quit. ! ! ! ! ! ! A 19 year old is an adult. And this particular 19 year old; adult, is a crackhead.
Sam6969
@ShowMeGuy,
He is a full legal adult, but nineteen is still a teen. The point being that you certainly do not have the same experience of people as a 19 yo than as a 50 yo, particularly if the latter might use manipulations tricks to get you laid with him.
It does not change the fact that what Sugrue did was reprehensible, but the older guy may not be the pure and innocent victim he wants to be seen. If you are 50 and you want to have a relationship with a 19 yo, it is fine, but you have heavier responsibilities on your shoulders. Eliseo does not strike me as someone who embarrases himself with many qualms (i.e. taking crack with a teen in the basement of a church you were generously allowed to live in, while pretending to the pastor you are recovering from drug use). So, manipulating this teen to get something sexual from him does not seem impossible for such a dysfunctional (and addicted) profile.
Also, Eliseu said that Sugrue got mad just after taking the drug (crack cocaine), which is known to produce undesirable effects such as paranoia, anxiety, aggressivity and even sometimes psychosis.
As far as I know, we (readers) do not know if Sugrue was a user of the drug before meeting Eliseu and we do not know whether Eliseu or Sugrue got the drug. If you have informative sources then show them.
What we know is that Sugrue did not have money (Eliseu had been giving him some bucks for a couple of weeks as they knew each other recently), so who could have bought this crack and who knew the right people?
My guess is that Eliseu’s manipulation tricks did not turn out the way he expected ; and I really hope all of that will be taken into account. Fair justice is all what I hope.
Sam6969
Anyway, we have little information, so everything is possible and it’s a bit ridiculous to comment. That’s actually all what we can say: « we have partial info » 🙂
Lookyloo
But the older man wasn’t merely ‘beaten’ like you claim.
The younger guy beat him, stayed there, kept the man locked down against his will, and beat him some more – for at least a couple days.
If the young guy had maybe punched the man and ran after an aggressive advance (if there was an advance at all) – you might have some legs to your claim of ‘shared responsibility’ – but he kidnapped the guy, beating+starving him over days.
Sam6969
@lookyloo,
-“Shared responsibility” in this (mutual) abuse does not necessarily mean 50/50; the ratio may have changed all along the course of their relationship. In the end, violence weighs heavily in the balance.
-Eliseu locked himself in his bathroom, because he was scared to go outside and be beaten again, but Sugrue’s parents say they saw their son on several occasions (giving details) at their house during the time Eliseu was supposed not to be able to leave. It sounds like a pretty loose kidnapping.
-Eliseu said he was left without food and drink. We see a sink in the bathroom, which raises questions.
-We do not know to which extent the drug provided by Eliseu (?) played its part in Sugrue’s behavior.
There are plenty of questions left unanswered in the media. We are just chasing windmills with our speculative comments, but what we can say is the case may not be as simple as it looks in the media.
That being said I feel sad for both of them, because both are teens or teen-like in their minds with special needs and they may have come along with each other as friends with honesty and better communication. There is a sense of waste and despair coming from them and particularly from Eliseu, who may just have looked for some kind of love (whatever his means) and was desperate about it. Another gay man who fell for a straight guy.
RobtheElder
It seems to me that the court following input from professional investigators will be needed to get to the bottom of these circumstances. If the 19 year old had wanted to distance himself from the drug addicted older man, he could have walked out of the church basement anytime. Something there fascinated him to the extent that he remained behind to attempt to do what? Was he alternately fascinated by a gay man and repulsed by what he could do to/for him, or did he want to have some sort of relationship with the man? Another aspect of this tableau is what sort of pastor allows a drug addicted man to live in the basement of his church without any sort of supervision. Couldn’t he have intervened to rescue the imprisoned man? What did he think was going on in the church basement for four days? Something about this punitive situation smells. Who is the perpetrator and who is the victim. Their roles are certainly suspect… RobtheElder