|
In the early morning hours of July 3rd, 1990, 29 year old bartender Julio Rivera, believing that he had made a new friend, was taken to an isolated alcove in a schoolyard and beaten to death. It was meant to send a message of fear to gay men and lesbians everywhere. At that time, initially nobody paid attention but a handful of people.
Julio was lured by a young man into a gay cruising area, where two accomplices beat him in an attack outside Public School 69, on 37th Ave. Julio was ruthlessly stabbed and bludgeoned to death in the courtyard of a Jackson Heights elementary school by three young men who killed him because he was gay.
Jackson Heights, the multi-cultural mecca in the heart of Queens, has
also become home to the city's largest gay and lesbian community outside of Manhattan.
Initially, the press and the police did their best to downplay or
ghettoize this grisly hate-crime, a precursor of the tragic murder of
Matthew Shepard and many other gay men in the 90s. Julio Rivera's
killers attacked him repeatedly with a claw hammer, wrench, beer bottle and knife.
Newspaper articles vividly stereotyped Rivera as a Puerto Rican man with a cocaine addiction, who grew up in a South Bronx housing project. These articles used racist and heterosexist stereotypes to construct Rivera as a "hot, promiscuous addicted Latin," and therefore minimized his status as a gay man.
The police may have known or discovered that Rivera was gay, but decided to cover-up the fact that this was a gay bashing. The murder of Julio Rivera symbolizes the intersection of racism and homophobia, and is a vital pointer to the common ground between racial civil rights and gay and lesbian civil rights.
The Julio Rivera murder reflects the three different modes of oppression: hate crimes against gays, racism, and classism. The third mode is important, because had Julio Rivera been middle class, the police and press may have taken a different view of the matter.
 Rivera's killers - Eric Brown, 21, and Esat Bici, 20, armed with a hammer and a wrench, and who became the first defendants in state history to be tried and convicted for a bias-related murder. Their co-defendant, 21-year-old Daniel Doyle, testified against them at the trial after pleading guilty to manslaughter.
Brown said he engaged Rivera in a conversation outside Public School 69, setting him up for an attack by Bici and the third youth, Daniel Doyle. Brown said Bici was armed with a hammer and Doyle had a knife.
Julio was targeted by the trio, members of the Doc Martens skinhead gang, because they suspected he was a homosexual, Brown said.
Authorities said Doyle and Bici were members of a group that called
itself DMS, which has had several meanings over the years, including Doc Martin Stompers and Death Machine Skinheads.
Doyle testified for the prosecution during the first trial. He is
serving a state prison sentence for manslaughter. He inflicted the fatal stab wound, authorities said.
Erik Brown, 25, engaged Rivera in conversation outside a Jackson Heights school in July 1990, setting him up for an assault by his two cohorts, Esat Bici and Daniel Doyle Brown.
Rivera, who was gay, was targeted because the three members of a skinhead gang suspected he was homosexual, Brown said.
"I was to speak to him, detain him, while Mr. Bici and Mr. Doyle
attacked him," Brown said without emotion. "That's exactly what happened."
Prosecutors say Rivera, after being lured into a PS 69 courtyard, was attacked by the three young men associated with a skinhead gang because he was gay. He was bludgeoned and stabbed to death, with Doyle inflicting the fatal stab wound.
The cold-blooded killing shattered the family of Rivera, 29, and brought cries of outrage from the city's gay and lesbian community.
"The Police Department at first refused to call it a bias crime, even
after the three suspects were apprehended," said Ed Sedarbaum, founder of Queens Gays and Lesbians United.
"It took quite a while," he said, "... but it was obvious to the
district attorney that it was a hate crime."
The Queens group sprung to life as a result of the Rivera killing and
has monitored the case closely.
In the early morning of July 2, 1990, Mr. Brown, Esat Bici and Daniel
Doyle left a party, shaved their heads, and set out to pummel a gay man.
Mr. Brown lured Julio Rivera, whom he did not know, to the P.S. 69 playground, on 37th Avenue, and beat him with a hammer. Then Mr. Doyle, stabbed Mr. Rivera with a knife.
"This was a brutal, pre-meditated murder ... and Brown made it
possible," said Chris Quinn, executive director of the Gay and Lesbian Anti-Violence Project. "He was the Judas in this scenario."
Doyle, who inflicted the fatal stab wound, pleaded guilty to
manslaughter and is serving 8 1/3 to 25 years in prison. He testified
against Bici and Brown at a previous trial in 1991, in which a jury
convicted the two men of murder. The convictions were later overturned on technicalities.
Brown, who faced 25 years to life if convicted of murder, pleaded guilty to manslaughter before Justice Thomas Demakos. Under the deal, Brown faced up to 15 years in prison and testified against Bici at his upcoming retrial.
Brown and Bici, who is from Elmhurst, were convicted of murder in 1991. The convictions, however, were overturned on technicalities one of which involved jury selection. The Appellate Division found Justice Ralph Sherman, who has retired, wrongly excluded the public from part of the questioning of potential jurors. The judge in fact asked some members of the jury pool whether they were gay.
Ted Rivera, the victim's brother, said he was "not happy" with the plea agreement but accepted it as a way to insure that Bici will be prosecuted.
"I feel these men, these cowards, are guilty, and they were proven
guilty," Ted Rivera said outside the courtroom. "They butchered my
brother."
Although the appellate court made no judgment on whether the question
was appropriate, it noted that holding the interviews in chambers
violated the defendants' right to a public trial.
"This trial is truly about hate," Ted Rivera said solemnly. "I wanted
these guys off the streets I really believed we saved more people from being hurt."
The retrial deeply upset Rivera's family. They were angry that an appellate court ordered a new trial because of procedural errors by the judge who presided over the two men's murder trial.
"My hopes were fulfilled when they were convicted, but now I just don't know," Ted Rivera, Julio's brother, told the Daily News. "I feel that [the judge] should have been sanctioned, not us.
"This should not have happened. These men are guilty."
As prosecutors prepared for a second trial, Bici, who posted bail and was released, went on the lam, one day after his accomplices vowed to testify for prosecutors.
When Erik Brown and Esat Bici were convicted in 1991 of second-degree
murder, homosexuals thought justice had been done. A third man, Daniel Doyle, had already admitted to stabbing Mr. Rivera.
Mr. Bici, who was free on $350,000 bail, failed to appear for a court
hearing Tuesday, a day after Mr. Brown pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of manslaughter and agreed to testify against him. Judge Thomas A. Demakos revoked Mr. Bici's bail and ordered his arrest. His lawyer, Barry Gene Rhodes, said that neither he nor the Bici family had heard from the young man.
To Rivera's relatives, Bici's flight confirmed Bici is not innocent.
"This shows his guilt," sister-in-law Peg Rivera said. "We feel
vindicated. We now know we were not hounding innocent people."
Douglas Sullavan, 75, a Jackson Heights resident, sounded angry but not surprised that the defendant disappeared. "The law, the system is not taking this matter as seriously as they should," Mr. Sullavan said.
The feelings of vindication began to erode when the convictions were overturned by an appeals court. Now, any sense of justice has vanished.
Julio's ashes in an urn were committed at sea off the coast of Florida by his sister. A diver found that urn in 2000 and went on TV to ask to whom it belonged. Foreman sent for the urn and, according to Fiore, paraded it in Albany during the fight for the state hate crimes bill. The measure passed in June 2000.
Peg Rivera, sister-in-law of murder victim Julio Rivera, gave details of her brother-in-law's murder and their pursuit of a hate-crimes investigation with the Queens District Attorney's office.
Hearing the retelling of the murder of Julio Rivera was awful. On 2 July 1990, after returning to Jackson Heights from his job as a bartender somewhere in Queens, Rivera was approached by a young man in a known cruising area - the school yard of PS 69 at night. Walking together, now away from the street, they were approached by two other young men. At first Rivera assumed they were going to attack the two of them, not realizing he'd been lured into this trap by the first man.
After hitting him over the head with the 40-ounce beer bottle, and
subsequently hit him with a claw hammer and a pipe wrench, and finally stabbed with a knife.
Left for dead, Rivera was able to stumble onto the street, and,
incredibly, into the arms of his friend and former lover, Alan Sacks. It was Sacks who got AVP involved and had it noted as an anti-gay bias attack.
"He was not important, but he was loved, and they would not let it
rest," Rivera said. She said it took a lot of effort to find and convict Julio's killers. "It helps to know the murderers stood trial." He was beaten "like they wouldn't beat a dog."
I can only speak for myself, but the pain the Rivera family felt and
obviously still feels is palpable.
Peg Rivera also spoke about how much time it took to pursue a bias
motive, and how she often had trouble finding people to look after her young daughter. Her own community failed to support her. "The only community that would help Ted [her husband] was the gay community."
She also recognizes that the outpouring of support for her family, and for the family of Matthew Shepard, was unusual, and that many other victims' families are not as bolstered as theirs were.
Brown, who pleaded guilty to manslaughter and was sentenced to
five to 15 years in prison, had a hearing before the Parole Board in
March. He has been jailed since his arrest in 1991 and has received credit for time served.
Russell Morea, Brown's attorney, said he hoped the board considers all the facts, including Brown's remorse.
"He feels terrible about what happened," Morea said. "It was not
something he wanted to happen. It was something he went along with,
unfortunately, and will have to live with for the rest of his life."
Morea added that Brown "tried to do the right thing" when he pleaded
guilty and agreed to testify against co-defendant Esat Bici.
Prosecutors have claimed that Brown, Bici and Daniel Doyle were skinhead racists. Morea says Brown was an art student who meekly followed two more sinister characters.
City Controller Alan Hevesi is among the politicians who already have
agreed to oppose Brown's parole. "This was a terrible, heinous,
pre-meditated hate crime, and the perpetrator should serve the maximum," said Hevesi.
The New York State Board of Parole denied the request of Erik Brown, who has had disciplinary problems while in prison, one of three young men involved in the anti-gay murder of Julio Rivera, for an early release from prison.
On learning of the parole denial, Peg Rivera, Mr. Rivera's
sister-in-law, said: "We were pleased that he was denied for another two years. We hope that he is at least made to serve the full 15. Brown's actions were premeditated and hateful. He didn't know Julio. He singled him out solely because he thought he was gay."
Commenting on the denial of Mr. Brown's parole, Christine Quinn,
executive director of the New York City Gay and Lesbian Anti-Violence
Project, said, "This is a victory because it keeps a dangerous homophobe in jail," but added, "No one can be happy until Esat Bici is in jail."
Mr. Brown, who has had disciplinary problems while in prison, was
eligible for parole again in August 1998, and was again denied it.
 The Queens warrant Squad has mounted a nationwide search for former
Elmhurst resident Esat Bici, who jumped bail while waiting to be retried in connection with the gay-bashing slaying of Julio Rivera.
Bici was convicted of murder in 1991 and was sentenced to 25 years to
life, but his conviction was reversed.
He was free on $ 350,000 bail when he did not show up for his new trial earlier this year, and a warrant was issued for his arrest, said Sgt. Fred Wilson of the Queens warrant squad.
Wilson said he has received numerous tips that Bici has visited Queens. "He has a number of connections," Wilson said. "It wouldn't surprise me if he's in Queens, Texas or upstate New York."
Gay activists have posted a $ 10,000 reward for information leading to the capture of a skinhead gang member charged in the fatal
beating and stabbing of Julio in Jackson Heights.
The New York City Gay and Lesbian Anti-Violence Project, which is
posting the reward, also is conducting a letter-writing campaign
demanding that Esat Bici be prosecuted for murder and nothing less.
Activists don't want prosecutors to offer a plea deal that might allow Bici to be sentenced to a lesser charge if he is captured.
"No deals, no pleas," Anti-Violence Project Executive Director Christine Quinn said. "The gay community and Julio Rivera do not deserve that."
The police Crime Stoppers program is offering another $ 1,000 reward. Bici was also featured on an airing of the television show "America's
Most Wanted."
The Week Of October 17, 2002
Fugitive Is Found Dead in Tijuana
Killed Gay Man in Jackson Heights
 A fugitive in a 1990 hate crime homicide in Queens has been found shot to death in Mexico.
According to Queens District Attorney Richard Brown, Esat Bici, wanted for the murder of Julio Rivera, 29, a gay man beaten and stabbed to death in a Jackson Heights school yard, was killed along with another individual on October 2, 2002 in Tijuana, Mexico in an apparent drug-related shooting.
District Attorney Brown was advised by the United States Marshals Service that a fingerprint check had resulted in the positive identification of Bici, 30, as the individual who was being sought by federal, state and local authorities for Rivera's slaying.
Bici originally had been convicted along with Erik Brown and Daniel Doyle - all members of a gang that called itself DMS, which meant Doc Martens Skinheads and Death Machine Skinheads - in the slaying of Rivera.
According to trial testimony, the three men set out to attack a gay person, came upon Rivera early on July 2, 1990, lured him into the P.S. 69 school Wyard at 77-02 37th Avenue in Jackson Heights and killed him, using a knife and a hammer.
The Appellate Division later reversed the convictions of Brown and Bici and the case was set for re-trial. Brown on May 13, 1996 pleaded guilty to manslaughter and was subsequently sentenced to prison. However, Bici, who had been free on $350,000 bail, disappeared the day after Brown pled guilty and a warrant was issued for his arrest.
Gay activists of the New York City Gay and Lesbian Anti-Violence Project had posted a $10,000 reward for information leading to the capture of Bici.
"The murder of Julio Rivera was a particularly horrendous crime carried out against a gay man solely because of his sexual orientation," said District Attorney Brown. "The taking of a life because of hate is conduct so deplorable that it must be condemned clearly and unequivocally. I commend the United States Marshals Service and the detectives of the New York City Police Department's Warrant Squad for diligently searching for the defendant during the six years that he has been at large and for the television program America's Most Wanted for assisting in the search. They made a commitment to the memory of Julio Rivera and they searched continuously for Bici so they could bring him to justice."
The investigation was conducted by the District Attorney's Detective
Bureau, the New York City Police Department Warrant Squad and the United States Marshals Service. Senior Trial Attorney Richard Schaeffer of the District Attorney's Homicide Investigations Bureau and Assistant District Attorney Alix Horland of his Extradition Unit participated in the investigation.
Rivera's brother Theodore said the news of Bici's death was a relief. "I don't think there's a day goes by that either my brother's name or his passing does not affect my family," he said.
Doyle and Brown are still behind bars and have had parole denied. Doyle is in for eight to 25 years. Brown got five to 15 years for manslaughter at the 1996 retrial where he pled guilty. The three men went out to hunt a gay man in 1990 and Bici went on to choose a life of being hunted, ending up being slain himself.
"He caused his family an awful lot of pain," Ted Rivera told the Daily News. "They lost houses and businesses for his bail. We feel compassion for his family, but it does close the chapter of Esat Bici."
Kurt Wolfe and Andrew McMahon, The Price We Pay
Interview by Raj Ayyar
Kurt Wolfe just completed a manuscript featuring a fictionalized version of the Julio Rivera case.
Kurt Wolfe: We just finished writing it; it's been about 3 years in the making.
Raj Ayyar: Is it an autobiographical work?
Kurt Wolfe: Oh, no. It started off as a non-fictional account of the brutal murder of Julio Rivera. But, then, we came to the conclusion that it would make a wonderful vehicle for a story to be a fiction based on reality.
Raj Ayyar: Tell us a little about the story.
Kurt Wolfe: The story is about a young attorney, by the name of Alex
Henderson who is a closeted gay lawyer.
Raj Ayyar: Was that true of the 'real life' public defender?
Kurt Wolfe: Oh, no. He was not gay. The attorney in our novel happens to be in court when one of the alleged murderers, a young gay man, is being arraigned. The young man couldn't afford an attorney, so Alex agrees to take him on. The fictional attorney is loosely based on some aspects of my life. The attorney finds out that the young man was not one of the gang members that killed Julio.
Raj Ayyar: Are you saying that Julio was having sex with one of his alleged murderers when...?
Kurt Wolfe: Yes. And this guy, named Eric Brown, was Julio's lover, and was attacked by the real murderers, but not killed, because Eric's brother was one of the gang responsible for Julio's murder. The gang was called the Doc Marten skinheads.
Okay, let me tell you the non-fictional story. One night, I got a call from Eric Brown's attorney called me to say that Eric was a victim and was having sex with Julio that night. I asked him if he'd talked to Eric about it. I did not want to violate client-attorney privilege. He said that if Queer Nation knew about this, they'd let up on his client. I replied, "Why doesn't your client get up on the stand and testify about this? Come out of the closet?"
The attorney stated that because there was no weapon associated with
Eric, all the evidence against him is circumstantial, and there were no witnesses. Eric decided to take a chance. Because, if he came out of the closet, his family would disown him, and he'd probably be killed by the gang that murdered Rivera. I don't believe that's exaggerated, and so he pleaded guilty, and was sentenced to 25 years life in a maximum security prison, where he still is.
Raj Ayyar: Interesting. I mean, his taking life in prison over coming out of the closet.
Kurt Wolfe: That's right. Hence the title of my book, The Price We Pay.
Monday, April 17, 2000
-Remarks By Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani At Public Hearing On Local Laws-
The next bill before me, Introductory Number 613, sponsored by Council Members Sabini, Linares, Marshall, Quinn and Abel, would add, through the posting of an additional sign, the name "Julio Rivera Corner" at the southwest corner of 78th Street and 37th Avenue, in Queens.
Julio Rivera was born on May 8, 1961, and was raised in the Bronx. In 1980, Julio moved to Manhattan, and launched a modeling career. Unfortunately, on July 2, 1990, Julio was the victim of a brutal and fatal attack in the schoolyard of Public School 69 in Jackson Heights.
The Jackson Heights community, together with the New York City Gay and Lesbian Anti-Violence Project, led a campaign for the arrest and indictment of those responsible for Julio's death. In 1991, three individuals were apprehended and convicted of Julio's murder.
Therefore, to commemorate the life of this young New Yorker, it is fitting that the southwest corner of 78th Street and 37th Avenue be named "Julio Rivera Corner."
For the reasons previously stated, I will now sign the bill.
Rudolph W. Giuliani,Mayor
Something that really hit me badly and made me sad, while searching for documentation about this horrible crime, is that I found pages on pages, and pictures, about the murderers, mainly about Bici, and quite nothing about Julio Rivera, the victim. Almost as if the victim was not "important enough" to devote him, his life, his hopes, his personality some more attention...
Andrej
|
