Killing of Michael Sandy

[1] On the night of October 8, 2006, Sandy met Anthony Fortunato, 20, and John Fox, 19, in an online chatroom.

[2] After exchanging emails about having sex, Fortunato arranged to meet Sandy at Plumb Beach, a rest stop and popular cruising location on Belt Parkway in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn.

[4] Fox and Fortunato then departed for Plumb Beach with friends Ilya Shurov, 20, and Gary Timmons, 17.

[6] Unconscious and suffering possible brain injuries, Sandy was taken to Brookdale Hospital, where he was placed on a respirator and remained in a vegetative state.

He died on October 13, 2006, one day after his 29th birthday,[8] when his family made the decision to remove life support.

A detective compared Shurov's picture to mug shots of young men arrested in the 61st precinct, and found a match.

[7] Witnesses picked Fox and Shurov out of line-ups and identified them as having been at the scene, attempting to grab Sandy.

[11] On October 25, 2006, Timmons pled guilty to one count of attempted robbery in the second degree as a hate crime.

[12] During questioning after arrest, the suspects made statements indicating that they had used the Internet to lure gay men in the past.

[13][14] On August 3, 2007, Judge Konviser ruled that Fox, Fortunato, and Shurov could be charged with hate crimes in Sandy's death.

In her written statement, Judge Konsiver said that prosecutors only need to show that Sandy was chosen because of his sexual orientation, under the state's Hate Crimes Act of 2000.

[15] Jury selection started on September 10, 2007, in the New York Supreme Court in Brooklyn for the trial of Anthony Fortunato and John Fox, two of the four men accused of chasing Michael Sandy to his death.

[17] On October 11, 2007, Anthony Fortunato, the third defendant, was found guilty of manslaughter as a hate crime for his role in the death of Michael Sandy.

On November 5, 2007, Ilya Shurov, 21, the fourth and last defendant in the Michael Sandy case, pleaded guilty to manslaughter and attempted robbery as hate crimes on the day his trial was to have started.

They received the following sentences from Justice Jill Konviser-Levine of State Supreme Court in Brooklyn, New York: Anthony Fortunato (21), 7 to 21 years.