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Framingham man sentenced in South End hate attack

E-mail|Link|Comments () May 27, 2009 08:20 PM

By Jenna Nierstedt, Globe Correspondent

A Framingham pizza deliveryman pleaded guilty today to nine criminal charges, including four civil rights violations, for beating and yelling homophobic slurs at four people in the South End last August, the Suffolk district attorney’s office said.

Fabio Brandao, 29, admitted to assaulting three men and one woman, all between the ages of 23 and 27 at the time, as they walked home on Columbus Avenue from a nightclub early in the morning of Aug. 24, District Attorney Daniel F. Conley’s office said.

Boston Police and emergency medical technicians arrived on scene shortly before 3 a.m. after one of the victims called 911.

Victims told police that four men in a white Honda drove up to them yelling homophobic slurs before exiting the car and attacking them, according to Conley.

A license plate number recorded by one of the victims and a recovered cellphone led police to Brandao, Conley said. The three other assailants remain at large.

Before pleading guilty today, Brandao had been scheduled to appear for trial at Boston Municipal Court.

Judge Thomas C. Horgan ordered Brandao to pay the victims a total of $4,250 for medical bills and related expenses by Nov. 25; stay away from the victims and the South End; and complete an anger management program.

Prior to the sentencing, the victims addressed the court to explain how the attack affected their lives.

One man who required stitches to his face said the physical scars serve as a reminder of the attack every day. He also said he had to move from the city.

Reached at his office this afternoon, Brandao’s attorney, Francis Doran of Natick, said he had no comment on the sentencing.