3 Charged in Gay Beating Go on Trial : ‘Kill the Faggot,’ Victim Says Attacker Yelled

A youth screamed “kill the faggot!” as he and two other alleged neo-Nazi “skinheads” struck a gay man repeatedly with a metal pipe one night last summer in Laguna Beach, the victim testified Monday in Orange County Superior Court.

The three defendants in the case, all of Huntington Beach, are the first charged in the county under a 1987 state civil-rights statute that specifically outlaws crimes of hatred, Deputy Dist. Atty. Thomas Avdeef said.

Avdeef asserted in his opening statement Monday in the Santa Ana courtroom that defendants John M. Moore, 23, and Stephen J. Walther and Aaron F. Compean, both 18, went to Laguna Beach one night last July specifically to seek out gays and attack them.

In addition to violating the hate-crime statute, the three men are charged with attempted murder, attempted robbery and assault with a deadly weapon in two separate beatings. Each faces a prison sentence of up to 17 years if convicted.

Prosecutors describe the defendants as members of a white supremacist “skinhead” gang that espouses hatred of Latinos, blacks and gays, among others. But defense attorneys have thus far sought to block efforts to introduce such evidence at the trial.

Defense attorney James S. Sweeney, representing Walther, readily acknowledged to the jury in his opening statement that “this case is about gay-bashing . . . as reprehensible as that is.”

But he and the other defense attorneys in the case disputed the prosecution’s attempts to show that the defendants wanted to kill and rob their victims. The defense attorneys asserted that their clients voluntarily left their victims, battered but alive, at the site of the attacks in Laguna’s Heisler Park.

Robert T. Joyce, 48, testified Monday that he was walking along the edge of the coastal cliffs in the park, described in testimony as a spot popular among gays, when he saw another man being beaten some distance away.

A short time later, Joyce testified, he was grabbed from behind and attacked by three men whom he identified as the defendants in the case.

Asked if he got a good look at the faces of his attackers, Joyce said: “I would never forget them. . . . That’s something you don’t forget.”

For several minutes, the three young men

punched and kicked Joyce while one of them pummeled him repeatedly on the head and body with a 2-inch-thick metal pipe, he said. Joyce, who described himself as gay, suffered a broken shoulder and numerous bruises, and required 80 stitches to close a wound on his head.

As the men began attacking him, Joyce said, he heard one of them yell: “Kill him! Kill him! Kill the faggot!”

Another man allegedly beaten by the defendants in a separate attack on the same night is now living out of state and may not be available to testify, prosecutors said.

Laguna Beach City Councilman Robert F. Gentry opened the trial by testifying that the site of the attack is an area frequented by gays, who he estimated make up 30% of the population of the city.

His testimony bolstered the prosecution’s contention that the defendants went to the area specifically to harass gays.

Gentry, the only openly gay elected official in Orange County, said in an interview after his testimony that the trial is being watched closely by local gays.

“This case will send a message that if you want to attack gay people, you better not do it in Laguna Beach,” he said.

Laguna Beach was the scene of a string of attacks on gays last summer, prompting the City Council to formally decry the violence and to call on the district attorney’s office to aggressively pursue prosecution.