Scammer
Banned
Police on Saturday identified the suspect who remains at large as 22-year-old Ruddy Vargas-Perez.
An eighth suspect has been arrested in a series of brutal, anti-gay hate crimes against four men, New York City Police Commissioner Ray Kelly announced Saturday, leaving one last suspect at large.
"When you hear the details of what occurred, torture really is the only word that comes to mind," New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said at a Saturday press conference with Kelly.
The incident involved three victims being held against their will by as many as nine assailants who beat them in a vacant apartment and sodomized two of them, Kelly said Friday. A fourth victim was beaten and robbed in connection with the attacks, Kelly said.
The string of attacks, which occurred Sunday, began when members of a street gang calling themselves the Latin King Goonies learned that an aspiring member is gay, authorities said.
"I was sickened by the brutal nature of these crimes and saddened at the anti-gay bias that contributed to them," Bloomberg said Saturday. "Hate crimes such as these strike fear into all of us."
Kelly announced the arrest of seven suspects Friday.
An eighth turned himself in Saturday afternoon and police had received word that the ninth suspect was prepared to do the same but "wound up not doing it," Kelly said.
According to Kelly, the 17-year-old pledge was forced into an unoccupied apartment around 3:30 a.m. Sunday and questioned about his contact with a 30-year-old man. He was thrown into a wall, forced to strip naked, hit in the head with a beer can, cut with a box cutter and sodomized with the wooden handle of a plunger, the commissioner said.
His assailants let him go, but threatened to hurt him or his family if he talked, Kelly said.
The victim went to a hospital for treatment, but claimed his injuries were from an attack by unknown assailants on the street, the commissioner said.
At about 8:30 p.m Sunday, another 17-year-old was beaten and questioned about the same 30-year-old man, robbed of jewelry and held against his will in the same vacant apartment, Kelly said.
At 9:30 p.m., the 30-year-old man was lured to the location where that 17-year-old was being held, was forced to strip naked and was tied to a chair opposite the teenager, Kelly said. The teenager was forced to hit the older male several times in the face and burn him with cigarettes, after which the suspects assaulted him with their fists and a chain and sodomized him with a small baseball bat, the commissioner said. The 30-year-old man was later dumped outside his home, he added.
Five of the suspects then went to the apartment the 17-year-old victim shared with his older brother and let themselves in using a key they'd taken from the man, Kelly explained. They beat the man's brother and demanded money from him.
When he refused, the assailants put a cell phone to his ear and he heard his younger brother say that he was being held against his will and to "give them the money," the commissioner said. The older brother told the suspects where they could find the money, after which they tied him up and left the apartment, Kelly added.
The commissioner said a search of the apartment Wednesday revealed very little. He said the suspects likely returned to the scene and cleaned the rooms with bleach and repainted the walls.
The hate crimes task force took over the investigation, Kelly said, and coordinated with the Bronx Gang Division and Bronx Special Victims Squad to help identify and capture the suspects. Pending charges against them include unlawful imprisonment, abduction, sodomy, assault, robbery, and menacing, all as hate crimes, the commissioner said.
The crimes and arrests have attracted national attention.
"It is tragic to see what hate can do," Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign, a national gay rights group, said Saturday. "These three men were brutally attacked ... simply for who they are."
"Authorities must vigorously prosecute the perpetrators of these hateful crimes," Solmonese said. "Unfortunately, these crimes come on the heels of several other recently reported hate crimes in New York City."
Police announced the arrests of Bryan Almonte, 17, Steven Caraballo, 17, Brian Cepeda, 16, Nelson Falu, 17, Ildefonzo Mendez, 23, Denis Peitars, 17 and David Rivera, 21, on Friday.
The teenagers are being charged as adults, police said.
On Saturday, Kelly said police had arrested Elmer Confresi, 23, who goes by the street name of Macho.
The suspect who remains at large was identified as 22-year-old Ruddy Vargas-Perez.
All of the suspects live in the Bronx, police said.
