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GUILTY VERDICT IN JEFFREY CONROY CASE

Posted April 19, 2010 by Ted Hesson

In front of a crowded courtroom that included the family of accused killer Jeffrey Conroy but not the family of his victim, the jury in Conroy’s murder trial found the 19-year-old Medford resident guilty of first-degree manslaughter as a hate crime, as well as other lesser charges related to the November 2008 stabbing and killing of Ecuadorian immigrant Marcelo Lucero.

The jury found Conroy not guilty of second-degree murder and second-degree murder as a hate crime, in respect to the stabbing death of Lucero.

Conroy was part of a group of teens who made a sport of “beaner hopping”—slang they used for hunting down and assaulting Latinos—and the Lucero killing was part of an attack in the Village of Patchogue.

The stabbing shined a spotlight on anti-immigrant violence in Suffolk County, where Latino immigrants had long been the target of inflammatory political rhetoric and policies.

Motivated by the Lucero killing, the Southern Poverty Law Center, an organization that tracks hate groups across the nation, sent a researcher to Suffolk County in September 2009.

The resulting report, “Climate of Fear: Latino Immigrants in Suffolk County, N.Y.,” detailed dozens of attacks against Latinos in Suffolk County, many of those attacks unreported.

The guilty verdict in the Conroy trial arrived after the jury had seen a written statement in which Conroy confessed to the crime, heard from experts that linked DNA on the murder weapon to Conroy, and listened to witnesses who recounted the hate attack that took Lucero’s life.

Conroy’s sentencing is set for May 26. For a list of the potential sentences for the various charges, click here.

In addition to first-degree manslaughter as a hate crime, Conroy was found guilty of first-degree gang assault and fourth-degree conspiracy in connection to the attack on Lucero.

He was also found guilty of three counts of attempted assault in the second-degree as a hate crime, in relation to attacks on Angel Loja, who was with Lucero on the night of November 8; Hector Sierra, who was attacked earlier that night, and Octavio Cordova, who as knocked unconscious during a November 3 attack.

The Lucero family was not present for the verdict, but relatives—including Marcelo’s mother, brother, and sister—arrived at the courthouse roughly 30 minutes after the decision, and addressed the media in a bilingual press conference.

After the press conference, the Lucero family returned to the scene of Marcelo’s murder in Patchogue, where they answered more questions from the media.

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