By Olivia Scheck
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
MANHATTAN — The D.C. man who was attacked in the bathroom of the famous Stonewall Inn bar spoke out through Facebook hours after the alleged gay hate crime, giving love to New York City.
“Just met with detectives to identify the other guy who gay bashed me,” Benjamin Carver, 34, a writer/art director who is also involved in marketing a press promotion, wrote on his wall at 3:36 p.m.
“New York, I still love you.”
Carver, who was visiting from D.C., decided to go to the Stonewall Saturday night because of its significance in the gay civil rights movement. But when he got up to go to the bathroom, he was approached by two men from Staten Island, prosecutors said.
"What kind of bar is this?" one of the men, Matthew Francis, 21, asked Carver, according to prosecutors.
When Carver told him that it was a gay bar, Francis told him "Get away from me f--got, I don't like gay people. Don't pee next to me," a criminal complaint added.
Francis then asked Carver for money, and, when he refused, Francis’ friend, Christopher Orlando, 17, attacked him, prosecutors said.
Carver says he fought back, but Orlando held him down while Francis punched him, said prosecutors.
Carver told friends about the incident from his hospital bed early Sunday morning:
“I'm at the hospital in new york. Got gay bashed while peeing in the bathroom at stonewall bar, where the gay rights movement began. Ironic, right? Guys wanted money. Cops got them. Craig says I look like forest whitaker, but I'll be ok. Waiting for stitches,” Carver wrote on his Facebook wall at 3:17 a.m.
Carver posted another update Sunday night, from a Greenwich Village police station.
“Waitng In the detectives office at the 6th precinct in Greenwich village. They called me in to pick the other guy out of a lineup. Hopefully I can identify him.”
Francis and Orlando were both arrested and charged with assault. Bail was set at $7,501 cash or $10,000 bond, which Orlando met, allowing him to walk free Monday evening. Francis remained in jail Tuesday morning.
This was the second anti-gay hate crime reported last weekend. Andrew Jackson, 20, was accused of punching two men after he witnessed them hugging and kissing goodbye in Chelsea Friday night.
"Go home f--gots! This is our neighborhood," Jackson screamed before the attack, according to a criminal complaint.
