MANHATTAN — One of two men who admitted to attacking a customer at the famed gay rights landmark Stonewall Inn last year was sentenced Tuesday to two months in jail — just a fraction of the eight-year sentence he initially faced.
Staten Island resident Christopher Orlando, who was 17 when he beat Washington D.C. man Benjamin Carver, 34, in the men's room of the bar on Oct. 3, 2010, will serve 60 days in jail and five years probation, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Bonnie Wittner said Tuesday afternoon.
Orlando and Matthew Francis, 22, admitted on Sept. 8, 2011 that they attacked Carver, who was visiting the Stonewall on a trip to New York.
"Get away from me, f--got. I don't like gay people," Francis said to Carver, according to prosecutors. "Give me a dollar. Give me 20."
Carver updated his Facebook page from a hospital bed after the attack, which left him needing stitches.
"Got gay bashed while peeing in the bathroom at stonewall bar, where the gay rights movement began. Ironic, right?" he wrote.
"New York, I still love you," he added.
Orlando pleaded guilty last September to third-degree assault as a hate crime and second-degree attempted robbery. He was expected to receive a six-month sentence.
Francis, who also initially faced eight years in prison and was believed to have played a greater role in the attack, is serving two years after pleading guilty to third-degree assault as a hate crime and second-degree attempted robbery.
Orlando was granted youthful offender status, under which his criminal record will be sealed as long as he is not arrested again.
When the two young men were promised abbreviated sentences by pleading guilty, customers at the Stonewall, at 53 Christopher St., said they were outraged by the length of the punishments.
