Arrested Made In Anti-Gay Robbery Attacks

NEW YORK - A 19-year-old Manhattan man has been arrested in connection with anti-gay robbery attacks on the Upper East Side in May and June, the police said on Friday.
The man, Driton Nicaj, was arrested on Thursday night near his home on East 84th Street, his father said. He faces charges including aggravated harassment and robbery as hate crimes. The police said they were searching for as many as three other men who participated in the early-morning attacks.
The police said the first robbery occurred on May 31, when two gay 19-year-old men sitting on a bench in Carl Schurz Park were approached by a group of men who demanded money and made off with $22. In the second attack, on June 27 on East 85th Street, Joseph Holladay, 36, was beaten and robbed by men yelling anti-gay slurs during Gay Pride weekend, he said. “They beat me hard and unconscious,” Mr. Holladay said.
In the latest attack, on June 28, a witness walking his dog on East 84th Street told the police that he saw two men kicking another man in the head. The victim, a 40-year-old gay man, was hospitalized with skull fractures and a broken nose, the police said. His iPod was stolen.
Paul J. Browne, the Police Department’s chief spokesman, said Mr. Nicaj had admitted taking part in at least one of the robberies. Mr. Nicaj said he was a witness but not a participant in the June 27 attack, the spokesman said.
Mr. Browne said the breakthrough that led to Mr. Nicaj’s arrest came on June 30, when officers pulled over a gold-colored Toyota minivan matching the description of a vehicle seen by a witness after one of the attacks. Three men in the van were not charged with a crime, but one of them — apparently Mr. Nicaj’s younger brother — was identified by a witness who looked at a photo array.
But the witness was unable to pick Driton Nicaj out in a lineup, Mr. Browne said. Only later, when someone whom Mr. Browne described as an individual “known to both Driton and his brother” viewed a video of one of the attacks, was the older brother identified.
His father, Zef Nicaj, said his son had gotten into trouble with the authorities in the past, but he characterized those run-ins as minor. He recalled an arrest for trespassing, and trouble after his son skipped school.
In February, his son left high school and started working full time with him renovating homes. The father said that his son said nothing about the attacks, and that he was surprised by the charges of anti-gay bias.
“My neighbor is gay and all my children have a friendly relationship with him,” the elder Mr. Nicaj said.
from The New York Times