Thursday February 25 8:18 PM ET

RI Attack Ruled No Hate Crime

Local officials denounced an assault on a t* entertainer as a hate attack, but the judge wasn't convinced there was enough evidence to use Rhode Island's bias crime law for the 1st time. The first test of Rhode Island's tough 1998 hate crimes law ended not with a bang but a whimper, as the prosecution failed to convince the judge that the November 26 beating of transgender Diana Obidowski was bias-motivated. Although Providence Mayor Vincent Cianci had previously called it his city's worst hate crime since the statute went into effect and the police called it one of the worst assaults they'd seen, the two assailants were convicted only of misdemeanor assault and will serve no jail time. Had the hate crimes law been applied, they would have had to serve a mandatory minimum of 30 days in jail with the possibility of a jail term as long as one year. Obidowski's multiple injuries included cuts that required more than a dozen stitches and she was left with a ! hole in the retina that will require lifetime monitoring. The injuries to her face prevented her working as an entertainer for some time.

However, the prosecutor was accepting of the judge's decision. Assistant City Solicitor Steven Catalano said, "We put on the best evidence that we could, but I knew it was going to be a tough row to hoe." He said "there was not proof beyond a reasonable doubt that the victim was targeted because of sex." The hate crimes law applies to those who "intentionally select" a victim based on "hatred or animus toward the [victim's] actual or perceived disability, religion, color, race, national origin, or ancestry, sexual orientation or gender."

District Court Judge Frank Cenerini sentenced David Sheldon and Taylor Grenier to one-year suspended sentences with probation; 25 hours of community service; fines of $500 each; and compensation for out-of-pocket medical expenses incurred by Obidowski (who as an Air Force veteran received most of her treatment through the Veteran's Administration). He also ordered the two men to stay away from Obidowski.

Cenerini told the "Providence Journal Bulletin" that there were neither witnesses nor evidence that Sheldon and Grenier had made anti-gay utterances during the attack, so he did not have an "abiding conviction" that the attack was bias-motivated. He and Catalano also both cited an "intervening situation," Obidowski's bending the antenna on the car the assailants and a third party were using.

On the night of November 26, Obidowski was leaving the gay and lesbian bar Wheels. One or more of the occupants of a car driving by yelled something at her, which she reported as "fucking faggot" and "fucking queer." The third man in the car, Brian Poole, also testified that something had been shouted out the window, but he had been unable to hear what it was over the car radio. Grenier admitted to police that he had shouted something but could not recall what it was. Obidowski went over to the car. According to her testimony, she told the occupants to "fuck off" and "flicked" the car antenna. According to the passenger's testimony, Obidowski chased the car, stuck her head in the window, said, "You fucking punk, I'll punch you in the face," bent the antenna, and walked off. One of the police officers responding to the call confirmed that the antenna had been bent "with some force."

As Obidowski tells it, as she was walking away, she was hit in the back and knocked facedown on the sidewalk, breaking her glasses and sustaining a serious cut over one eye. She managed to fend off the two assailants and run down an alley, but they caught up with her and attacked her again. Grenier admitted to police that he'd kicked her in the head. When police arrived on the scene, the three men were standing with the car nearby, one with blood on his sneaker; Obidowski was transported for emergency treatment. Although without her glasses Obidowski could not immediately identify her attackers, police were able to do so from witnesses' reports. Police said that both men had kicked her in the head and ribs.

But as the defense presented it, Sheldon got out of the car, walked towards Obidowski and said, "Hey, buddy, you broke my antenna." As he approached, Obidowski turned and took a swipe with her long fingernails that scratched his ear. In "self-defense" he lunged and knocked her down, while Grenier came running to assist him, and Poole moved into the driver's seat to follow with the car.

Cianci's liaison to the gay and lesbian community, Fitzgerald Himmelsbach, himself an open gay who has experienced a series of death threats, said, "It was a hate crime. It was a gay-bashing. ... the judge misunderstood or misinterpreted the new law, and I think we need to re-examine the law to make sure it doesn't happen again." In December, Himmelsbach had co-sponsored with the Providence Human Relations Commission a seminar on anti-gay hate crimes, at which he and assorted other presenters unanimously urged victims to make full reports to police. On the occasion of the suspects' arraignment, Cianci had held a press conference to say that, "This administration will not tolerate hate crimes of any kind. Those who think they can participate in gay bashing, or any time of crime motivated by ignorance, hatred, bias, in our city, have it all wrong."

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