18-year-old jailed for two months after Stonewall Inn assault
A man has been jailed in New York for two months attacking a man in the toilets of the city’s Stonewall Inn.
Christopher Orlando, 18, had admitted one charge of third-degree assault as a hate crime and one charge of second-degree attempted robbery against Benjamin Carver, 34.
Orlando was arrested along with Matthew Francis, 21, who has also admitted the charge and will serve two years in prison.
It was alleged Orlando demanded money and punched the victim in the head before tackling him to the ground while Francis held the door closed.
The incident took place at around 2am on a Sunday morning. Carver was treated in hospital and later released.
The teenager’s lawyer said he “just wants to put this behind him.”
The attack took place at the bar in the Greenwich Village which is a symbol of the birth of the gay rights movement after patrons staged protests in 1969 against police raids.
At the time of the arrest in 2010, one of the owners of the Stonewall Inn, Bill Morgan, told Associated Press: “We at the Stonewall Inn are exceedingly troubled that hate crimes like this can and do still occur in this day and age.
“Obviously the impact of these men’s violent actions is even deeper given that it occurred on the premises of the Stonewall Inn.”
