Justice has been served! Three of the four men involved in Michael Sandy’s October, 2006 death have been sentenced to various times in jail.
Anthony Fortunato, the 21-year old who orchestrated the attack, will serve 7 to 21 years. The man who led Sandy to the beach, 20-year old John Fox, faces 13 to 21 years in prison. Meanwhile, the youth who chased Sandy into traffic, Ilya Shurov, will serve 17 1/2 years.
The first two men addressed Sandy’s mourning parents to apologize for their gruesome actions, which involved posing as a sex-seeking man online, luring Sandy to a secluded area of Brooklyn and attacking him. Fearing for his life, Sandy ran into road, where a yet unidentified car slammed into the 29-year old.
He died a few days later.
The case became something of a sensation, particularly when Fortunato, who, again, organized the bloody affair, came out as gay. Regardless of his sexual proclivity, the jury felt his role persuasive enough to warrant a guilty verdict, but not of a hate crime. Fortunato acknowledged his weakness yesterday, telling the Sandy family, “I wish I had the resolve to stop what happened that night, but I acted like a coward and I turned and walked away”.
How about we take this to the next level?
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Perhaps Zeke Sandy, Michael’s father, had the strongest words yesterday, “These hate crimes become a cancer; it’s a disease. I don’t know why we have to go butcher one another because we don’t like what they are, who they are.”
It truly does boggle the mind.
Duncan Osborne for Gay City News provides more details on the sentencing, as well as letters of support for the killers.
ProfessorVP
The forgiveness part is pretty lame. I don’t see any compelling need to forgive the unforgiveable. It’s as though “if I’m not forgiving, that makes me a bad person.” It’s up to the individual, of course. Me, I don’t buy it.