Long Island teen found guilty of hate crime

April 19, 2010

A Long Island, New York teen has been found guilty of murdering an Ecuadorian immigrant Marcelo Lucero. The teen, 19-year-old Jeffrey Conroy, faces eight to 25 years in prison. The case exposed racial tensions in Long Island and received national media attention.

Lucero was stabbed in Patchogue on the night of November 8, 2008. He was approached by a group of people and beaten, then stabbed by Conroy.

Conroy was also convicted of three other counts of gang assault for other racially charged beatings on Long Island. He was not convicted with murder, but rather manslaughter as a hate crime.

A report commissioned by Suffolk County said that Latino immigrants "are regularly taunted, spit upon and pelted with apples, full soda cans, beer bottles and other projectiles". There have also been reports of persons being hit with baseball bats and shot by air-soft guns.