Overview
- On Thursday, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg announced a New York State Supreme Court indictment charging 37-year-old Kevin Maxwell with second- and third-degree assault as hate crimes plus weapons, child endangerment and harassment counts.
- Prosecutors say that on April 29 Maxwell approached a 12-year-old at Baruch Playground, made anti-gay remarks, left and returned with a belt and struck the boy, lacerating his shoulder while repeatedly calling him “gay.”
- Maxwell was arrested on July 5 and has pleaded not guilty at arraignment, and the indictment formally frames the allegations for trial while noting the defendant is presumed innocent.
- The DA’s office said it did not disclose whether the child identifies as LGBTQ and noted that New York’s hate-crime law covers violence tied to a victim’s actual or perceived sexual orientation, and prosecutors credited Detective Steven Acevedo and the NYPD Hate Crimes Task Force for the investigation.
- The case follows another anti-gay prosecution announced earlier this year by Bragg’s office and underscores a prosecutorial push to use hate-crime statutes to address bias attacks in public spaces such as NYCHA playgrounds.