Victim of Hate Crime Speaks Out

By [Dan Rivoli] More than a year ago, Driton Nicaj beat and robbed three men on the Upper East Side. They happened to be gay. One of the victims, Joseph Holladay, was hit in the head with the butt of a silver gun and robbed. He was the only one of Nicaj"s victims to come forward to tell his story and advocate against bias crimes. On July 10, 2009, the 19-year-old Nicaj, who lived on East 84th Street between First and Second avenues, was arrested for aggravated harassment and robbery as hate crimes. A witness had heard Nicaj use â??faggot during the attacks. Since his arrest, the hate crime charges were dropped and he pled guilty to three counts of assault in third degree March 4. He received a 45-day sentenceˆ  May 20 to be served concurrently and three years probation. With time already served, he was released June 9. Now, Holladay is again speaking out about the lax sentence he feels his attacker received, how the case was handled and the insult of having the hate crime charges dropped. â??It"s reprehensible, Holladay said, in a phone interview from Boston, where he lives. â??It"s not justice in any sense of the word. One of Nicaj"s other victims was brutally beaten as well. A day after Holladay was attacked, Nicaj and others beat and robbed another man. They struck him in the face, knocked him to the ground and kicked him. â??It just depressed me. Seriously depressed me that a judge could sentence somebody for 45 days for what he did to me and the other two as well, Holladay said. Though Holladay calls every part of the ordeal a â??slap in the face, the part that particularly stung was when Judge Ronald Zweibel dropped hate crime charges because â??faggot was used in anger, not because Holladay was gay. (Gay City News reported that, in grand jury testimony, a witness said the fight began after Holladay gave Nicaj the finger.) â??It didn"t feel like I was in Manhattan when dealing with the opinion of language with â??faggot," Holladay said. â??I come from a background in the academic world. Language is everything. It"s power and abuse. A spokesperson for Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance said the misdemeanor assault was the only option after the judge dropped the hate crime charges. â??The disposition in this case was reached after examining all of the evidence, reviewing the applicable law following the judge"s dismissal of the hate crimes count of the indictment, and consulting each of the victims, spokesperson Erin Duggan wrote in a statement. â??The Office remains committed to prosecuting hate crimes to the full extent of the law, and give each case the attention it deserves. Assembly Member Micah Kellner, who gave Holladay public support after his attack last year, believes the sentence and hate crime charge was outrageous. Kellner said he is â??utterly disappointed with how Vance"s office handled the case. â??What it says to thugs and criminals out there is, go ahead and roam the streets of New York, feel free to attack people unprovoked, said Kellner, who lives blocks from where the attacks happened, â??because your sentence will be rather light. Holladay still travels between Massachusetts and New York. When he"s asked how the attacks and the sentence changed his view of Manhattan, he said that it hasn"t. â??What happened to me can happen to anyone, anywhere, Holladay said. â??For me, it just happened in Manhattan and the Upper East Side. But I love Manhattan.