A Brooklyn appellate court has upheld the manslaughter-as-a-hate-crime conviction of Anthony Fortunato, a 21-year-old bisexual man who lured a gay man to his death in 2006. Mr. Fortunato met the victim, Michael Sandy, in an Internet chat room and coaxed him to come to Sheepshead Bay Beach, where two of Mr. Fortunato’s friends intended to rob him. However, Mr. Sandy fled from his attackers and was struck and killed by a car on the Belt Parkway.
Before his 2007 trial, Mr. Fortunato contended that the crime should not be charged as a hate crime, which carried a longer mandatory sentence, as he himself was “at least” bisexual. Supreme Court Justice Jill Konviser-Levine (See Profile) disagreed and allowed the charge to stand. Mr. Fortunato was convicted by a reluctant jury—the foreman later told a reporter, “None of us wanted hate crime…. We were crying in the room.” Mr. Fortunato was sentenced to 7 to 21 years in prison.
