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Jeffrey Conroy’s Knife: “It Had Blood on It”

Posted March 29, 2010 by Ted Hesson
Categories: Hate Watch

Earlier this afternoon, I posted about today’s testimony from Nicholas Hausch, who took the stand for the prosecution in the murder trial of Jeffrey Conroy. Conroy is accused of stabbing and killing Ecuadorian immigrant Marcelo Lucero.

Hausch has already pleaded guilty to charges related to the attack on Marcelo Lucero and other “beaner hopping” attacks in the Patchogue area. As part of his plea agreement, the 18-year-old Hausch agreed to testify in the trials of other defendants if called upon by the district attorney’s office.

During his testimony today, Hausch spoke at depth about attacks against Latinos that he participated in.

Regarding Conroy’s role in the attacks, Hausch said that after the attack against Lucero and Angel Loja, Conroy had told him that he had stabbed Lucero, and had shown Hausch the bloody knife. Otherwise, Hausch remembered few specifics about what Conroy had said and done during the attacks.

Hausch’s testimony began by describing the night of Friday, November 7, and the early morning of Saturday, November 8. On that night, Hausch, fellow defendant Jordan Dasche, and another friend, Nick Loria, went out with an explicit purpose: to hunt down and attack Latinos.

Armed with Hausch’s BB gun, the group drove to Farmingville first, but they couldn’t find any Hispanics, and instead stole some lawn ornaments and re-routed to Patchogue.

Hausch explained, in general, how “beaner hopping” worked: “We would start talking, like yelling at them, asking if they wanted to fight, calling them names, like beaner, Mexican,” Hausch said. “Then if they wanted to fight, we would fight them.”

In Patchogue, the three teens found a Hispanic man on his front porch, and started yelling at him. The man had a beer bottle in his hand, and after the insults from Hausch, he broke the bottle and started walking towards Hausch with it.

Jordan Dasche then shot the man with Hausch’s BB gun. “I don’t know if he hit him or not, but I heard [the man] scream,” Hausch said. The group left and threw the BB gun over a fence.

Hausch separated from Dasche and Loria, and while Hausch was hiding, the other two were questioned by police, who asked about the BB gun. Neither Dasche nor Loria was arrested, and Hausch later retrieved the BB gun.

On the following day, Jordan Dasche, who Hausch described as his best friend, picked Hausch up at his house. The two of them planned to meet Anthony Hartford, Kevin “Kuvan” Shea, and a kid named “Bobby” at the Medford train station, and they bought an 18-pack of Budweiser that they brought to drink at the train station.

In addition to those friends, Dasche and Hausch met Jeffrey Conroy, Jose Pacheco, and Chris Overton at the train station. They also met three girls and four other male teens, two of whom have testified already in Conroy’s trial.

Overton had brought a water bottle full of liquor to the train station, but Hausch, who said that he drank about four beers, wasn’t sure about the liquor type.

As for Conroy, Hausch said, “I saw him with a beer, but I don’t know if he was actually drinking it.”

As the group hung out in the parking lot, Hausch told some of the teens the story of the previous night’s BB gun attack: “They were shocked that I got away with it,” Hausch said. On cross-examination, Hausch could not confirm that Conroy had heard him tell the story.

After hanging out in the train station, Hausch went with Dasche and Hartford to drop Bobby off at his Medford home. Dasche and Hartford wanted to smoke marijuana, so they went to Patchogue to get some, and smoked there. Hausch testified that he did not smoke with them.

The three teens drove on Route 112 back to the Medford train station, and on the way, “we saw a Spanish guy walking his bike,” Hausch said. “I told Jordan to pull over the car.”

Hausch and Hartford got out of the car and approached the Latino man—who appeared to be drunk—calling him names, like “beaner” and “Mexican.” When Hartford went back into Dasche’s SUV, the man came after Hausch, he said.

Then Hartford and Hausch punched the man, and eventually got back in the SUV. Once in the SUV, the man tried to punch a window, which was open, Hausch said, and that provoked the teens to get back out and beat him further. “They started punching him, and I was kicking him,” Hausch said.

Before they left, Hausch took the man’s white NASCAR baseball cap “as a trophy,” he said.

The trio returned to the Medford train station, but after 20 minutes or so, Kevin Shea shot Hausch’s BB gun and set off some sort of buzzing in the train station, so they all relocated to Southaven Park, about five minutes away (This detail conflicts with prior testimony by Jason Everhardt, who said that Conroy fired the gun that set off the alarm).

At Southaven Park, the group hung out in an area that Hausch, during cross-examination, likened to the size of the courtroom. Eventually, according to Hausch, he and the other six defendants made a plan to leave the girls at the park, and go “beaner hopping.”

Earlier in his testimony, Hausch had said that he imagined the girls didn’t approve of the fighting. As for the other four boys (Everhardt, Moran, Grillo, and Rivera), “we invited them to come, but they said ‘no,’” he said.

Hausch suggested they drive to a sump by his house in Medford because there were usually homeless people there who he believed to be Hispanic, he said. They drove over to that area in Dasche’s SUV, parked, and walked towards the sump, but it was closed off by a locked fence, so they went back to the car.

Next, they decided to go to Patchogue. “We were just going to drive around and look for them,” Hausch said, referring to Latino victims.

Hausch said that, aside from his BB gun, he was unaware of anyone else carrying a weapon. On cross-examination, he said that he had never seen Conroy with a knife, either on the night of the alleged murder or any other time.

Once in Patchogue, the teens found Hector Sierra, who testified in court last week about the attack. Sierra was walking on Main Street near a Jewish temple when the group confronted him, according to Hausch.

Hausch said that Hartford, Pacheco, and Conroy all ran towards Sierra. While Hausch couldn’t see what happened, he did hear Sierra yelling, he said.

They all got back into the car and continued on, but Dasche didn’t want to drive anymore, so they parked in the Brickhouse Brewery parking lot, Hausch said. The brewery is located on Main Street in downtown Patchogue.

The walked on Main Street to Railroad Avenue, where they encountered Lucero and Loja near the Patchogue train station parking lot. About five minutes elapsed from when they parked the SUV to when they found Lucero and Loja. In court, Hausch described Lucero as “the shorter guy,” and Loja, as “the taller guy.”

Upon spotting Lucero and Loja, the group of teens began to insult them. “We were calling them names like ‘beaners,’ ‘Mexicans,’” Hausch said. “They started screaming back.”

He continued: “I was cursing at them, saying ‘fuck you, come fight,’” he said. Lucero and Loja were yelling in Spanish, but Loja—presumably speaking in English—called Pacheco an “ugly nigger,” Hausch said.

Shea then punched Lucero in the face, and Hausch noticed that Lucero was bleeding. “Kevin Shea said that he wasn’t even going to fight him because he was bleeding from one punch,” Hausch said.

The group was backing up, away from Lucero, Hausch said, when Lucero took off his jacket and belt, and started swinging his belt around. Shea then called for the teens to surround Lucero, and they formed a half-circle around him, Hausch said.

On cross-examination, Hausch said that the circle that they formed didn’t entirely block Lucero from escape, and that they were keeping some distance from Lucero to avoid being hit with his belt. Defense attorney William Keahon questioned Hausch about the swinging belt:

“And then Mr. Lucero takes off his belt, and he started swinging the belt,” Keahon said. “You guys had already decided to retreat, yes?”

“Yes,” Hausch answered.

At one point, Lucero approached Hausch, and Hausch quickly walked away. From that point forward, Hausch couldn’t see what transpired in the fight, he said.

With that in mind, Keahon also asked Hausch about what he had and hadn’t seen during the confrontation:

“Did you see anyone touch Marcelo Lucero other than Kevin Shea?” Keahon asked.

“No,” Hausch replied.

“Did you seen anyone punch Angel Loja? Did you see anyone swing at Angel Loja?”

“No.”

Shortly after Hausch backed away, he saw that the other alleged attackers were also walking away. “Jeff was walking past me, and he said, ‘We gotta go,’” Hausch said. “He said that he stabbed him.”

Hausch said that Conroy showed him the knife, and that “it had blood on it.”

The other teens later told Conroy to get rid of the knife, but Conroy said that he had washed it off in a puddle. Although Hausch wasn’t sure who said it, he remembers someone in the group saying, “imagine if we get away with this.” Hausch replied that they weren’t going to get away with it.

When the group reached South Ocean Avenue, they were approached by a police office in an SUV. Within seconds, they were detained by the officer and told to put their hands against the wall.

On cross-examination, Keahon focused on what Hausch had seen Conroy do or say during the attack.

After Hausch acknowledged calling Lucero and Loja “beaners” before the attack, Hausch also said that he couldn’t remember Conroy specifically using any slurs, either at the scene of the attack or during the drive through Patchogue as the group searched for Latinos to assault.

“You can’t tell this jury that you heard Jeffrey Conroy say anything in that car, can you?” Keahon asked.

“No,” Hausch replied.

A Suffolk County police detective took the stand for the prosecution in the afternoon, but I didn’t stay for her testimony. I assume that the trial will resume tomorrow in Riverhead, but I can add a definitive update later.

Tags : hate crimes, jeffrey conroy, marcelo lucero, nicholas hausch

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