1 Year Probation in Gay-Bashing Case

The 26-year-old Cambridge resident accused of assaulting an openly gay Harvard undergraduate last April was found guilty in Middlesex District Court yesterday, in a day-long trial that featured passionate testimonies by the victim and witnesses.

Timothy J. Kelleher was found guilty of assault and battery and was sentenced to one year of probation and 50 hours of community service, narrowly escaping the six-month prison sentence sought by the prosecutor.

The verdict comes a day after all charges were dropped against a second defendant, Jose T. Sousa, 26, stemming from an incident in which both were accused of verbally and physically abusing a Harvard undergraduate as he walked on Bow Street to a Bisexual, Gay, Lesbian, Transgender, and Supporters Alliance (BGLTSA) party in Adams House on April 30, 2005.

The victim of the attack, Galo Garcia III ’05, had charged that as he walked to the party, he was accosted by two white men who had been looking for a parking space.

Garcia charged that the defendants began yelling homophobic and anti-Semitic slurs at him, calling him a “faggot Jew.” He then started yelling at the defendants as he approached their car, calling them “assholes.” Then, Garcia claimed, Kelleher allegedly exited his vehicle and struck Garcia repeatedly in the chest and the head.

Garcia sustained bruises on his upper left chest and above his temple, according to the initial Harvard University Police Department report.

In court yesterday, the room was eerily quiet as Garcia took the witness stand and recounted events of the night of the incident.

“Everything happened in a blur,” he recalled. He recounted that after he greeted a male friend with a “hug and a kiss on the cheek” and “putting [his] arm around [his friend],” the defendants began yelling “faggots, faggots” at him outside the window of their car.

Garcia recalled then telling the two defendants in their car something akin to “you fucking assholes, you shouldn’t say shit like that here.”

Daniyom F. Haile ’04, a friend of Garcia’s who was present during the incident, also recalled the events of the night on the witness stand in court yesterday.

He described how, after hearing the slur, Garcia approached the car. He said the car “half-parked in the second spot” at the corner of Bow Street, and the driver jumped out and attacked Garcia, yelling “faggots” while punching Garcia at least one time in the chest and two times in the head.

According to Garcia and photographic evidence submitted to the judge yesterday, Kelleher’s fists “threw [Garcia] into the wall” and left him with at least one large bruise on his “left pectoral,” a large contusion on his jaw, a concussion, and a bruise and pronounced swelling on the back and side of his head.

Haile recalled that as the defendants were escaping, Sousa, the co-defendant, yelled something to the effect that Kelleher should “turn off his lights so they can’t get your license plate number.”

But in his closing statements yesterday, Kelleher’s lawyer disputed Garcia and Haile’s account of the night, and said that there was not enough evidence to implicate his client.

“There is no evidence for intimidation,” he said, noting the “high burden of proof” necessary to prove that the incident was because of the victim’s sexual orientation.

Middlesex Assistant District Attorney Jessica Noble, however, urged the judge to issue a harsh sentence, recommending a six-month prison sentence, 18-month probation, and community service.

In the end, in addition to probation and community service, the judge also instructed Kelleher to take part in a diversity training program, write a letter of apology to Garcia, and to have no further contact with Garcia.

The court found Kelleher not guilty of a lesser charge of “intimidation,” according to Middlesex D.A. spokeswoman Kathryn Norton. The case was heard as a “bench trial”—where the judge is the sole adjudicator of guilt and sentence—as opposed to a jury trial.

Garcia could not be reached for comment after trial. Neither Kelleher, Sousa, nor any of their lawyers would comment for this story when approached outside the courtroom.

—Staff writer Matthew S. Blumenthal can be reached at mblument@fas.harvard.
—Staff writer Reed B. Rayman can be reached at rrayman@fas.harvard.edu.