Thursday, March 25, 2010

Sucuzhañay case moves towards trial

It has been more than 16 months since Ecuadorian immigrant José Sucuzhañay’s murder, but the case against the two men who allegedly beat him to death on a Bushwick street corner in Dec. 2008 continues to move forward.

A Brooklyn judge will hold a hearing on Wednesday, March 31, to determine whether prosecutors and defense lawyers are ready to go to trial. Jury selection could begin next month. And the Sucuzhañay family said it expects the trial to begin sometime in May.

Hakim Scott and Keith Phoenix allegedly shouted anti-gay and anti-Latino slurs as they beat Sucuzhañay with a baseball bat and broken bottles as he and his brother Romel walked arm and arm near the corner of Bushwick Avenue and Kossuth Place on Dec. 7, 2008. His death came roughly a month after Jeffrey Conroy allegedly stabbed Ecuadorian immigrant Marcelo Lucero to death at a Patchogue train station.

Lucero’s brother Joselo was among the hundreds of people who marched down Myrtle Avenue after Sucuzhañay’s murder to demand justice.

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