Three women who are accused of viciously beating a gay man in Boston claim they cannot be charged with hate crime because they are all lesbians.
The three women, sisters Erika Stroud, 21, Felicia Stroud, 18, and Lydia Sanford, 20, face charges of hate crime, assault and battery with intent to intimidate after using homophobic slurs, then repeatedly punching and kicking the man, breaking his nose.
The mother of the two Stroud sisters, Carolyn Euell, told the Boston Herald that the alleged attack can’t be called a hate crime because her daughters are both gay.
Prosecutors told the Herald that they will have no problem proving the women committed a hate crime after the use of homophobic and hateful language, even if the attackers are lesbians.
‘The defendants’ particular orientation or alleged orientations have no bearing on our ability to prosecute for allegedly targeting a person who they believe to be different from them,’ Jake Wark, a spokesman for a Suffolk Distrct Attorney said.
