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Castaways on the Solar Winds owner Lionel Pires says the man accused of the crime offered to pay for the damage. But the offer, Pires says, was too little, too late.
01:00 AM EDT on Monday, April 19, 2004
By RICHARD SALIT
Journal Staff Writer
NEWPORT -- '
A little over a week ago, Joseph Lungarelli entered Castaways on the Solar Winds, whose plate-glass windows he allegedly bashed with a baseball bat last month while shouting anti-homosexual remarks. He walked across the gay bar's wooden floor, where glass shards rained down during the brief but violent episode, and asked someone to hand his driver's license to owner Lionel Pires.
Pi
es was in another part of the bar, talking to customers who had seen media coverage of the attack in Florida. When Pires saw the license, he immediately recognized the name. It was the 23-year-old man polic
e h
d arrested for the crime only days earli
er, nearly three weeks after the attack. He was charged with malicious damage, a misdemeanor, but could face 30 days in jail if a judge agreed to impose hate crime sentencing guidelines.
Now Lungarelli and Pires were face to face.
" 'I'm sorry I broke your window,' " Pires said he recollects Lungarelli saying. "I was drunk, and I'll pay for them."
That was the end of an apology that Pires deemed too little, too late.
"I said you came here now after you got caught, but the next day [after the incident] you weren't here, two days later you weren't here," Pires recounted. "We were in the newspapers and on the television. You terrorized an entire community. People were looking fo
r you and you didn't say anything."
Pires wasn't moved by the offer to pay for $1,800 in damage. A judge is almost certain to order restitution, Pires said.
&
quot
;I t
hink
he's a
fraid of going to jail," said Pires. "That was my impression of it."
Lungarelli, an auto mechanic who was
living just up the road from the Prospect Hill Street establishment, declined to comment for this article. He said that his lawyer had advised him to not speak to the media "as much as I would like to give my version."
Lungarelli pleaded not guilty in District Court last week and was released on personal recognizance. He is scheduled to return for a pretrial hearing on April 28.
The police say he bashed nine holes in Castways windows at around 2:30 a.m. on March 13, only six days after the city's only gay bar opened. A neighbor heard the culprit yelling the antigay remarks. Pires lives above the bar and was awakened during the attack. He saw t
he man and dialed 911. But by the time the police arrived, the suspect was gone.
Newport detectives say they cracked the case earlier this month. They arrested Lungare
lli on A
pril 8.<
br>
P
ires said the attac
k struck him as "so deliberate ... someone paid us a visit ... It's intimidation, intimdation through violence." It was even worse t
hat the man police say did it was living a few doors away, he said..
"I said, 'You are my neighbor,' " Pires recalls telling Lungarelli. "That's scary."
"It was an apology but it didn't have much heart in it, and I looked for it," said Pires. "Show some real remorse about what you did."
Toward the end of the meeting, "I told him I was not the person who was going to decide his fate. I said he needed to talk to a judge and lawyer, and he probably shouldn't be here and that he should go."
In fact, during his subsequent arraignment, a judge took the custom
ary step of ordering Lungarelli not to have contact with the victims.
"The last thing he said to me on the way out," Pires recounted, "w
as 'Well
, I tried.&#
39; "<b
r>http://www.projo.com/eastbay/content/projo...t19.1d64af.html
Castaways on the Solar Winds owner Lionel Pires says the man accused of the crime offered to pay for the damage. But the offer, Pires says, was too little, too late.
01:00 AM EDT on Monday, April 19, 2004
By RICHARD SALIT
Journal Staff Writer
NEWPORT -- '
A little over a week ago, Joseph Lungarelli entered Castaways on the Solar Winds, whose plate-glass windows he allegedly bashed with a baseball bat last month while shouting anti-homosexual remarks. He walked across the gay bar's wooden floor, where glass shards rained down during the brief but violent episode, and asked someone to hand his driver's license to owner Lionel Pires.
Pi
es was in another part of the bar, talking to customers who had seen media coverage of the attack in Florida. When Pires saw the license, he immediately recognized the name. It was the 23-year-old man polic
e h
d arrested for the crime only days earli
er, nearly three weeks after the attack. He was charged with malicious damage, a misdemeanor, but could face 30 days in jail if a judge agreed to impose hate crime sentencing guidelines.
Now Lungarelli and Pires were face to face.
" 'I'm sorry I broke your window,' " Pires said he recollects Lungarelli saying. "I was drunk, and I'll pay for them."
That was the end of an apology that Pires deemed too little, too late.
"I said you came here now after you got caught, but the next day [after the incident] you weren't here, two days later you weren't here," Pires recounted. "We were in the newspapers and on the television. You terrorized an entire community. People were looking fo
r you and you didn't say anything."
Pires wasn't moved by the offer to pay for $1,800 in damage. A judge is almost certain to order restitution, Pires said.
&
quot
;I t
hink
he's a
fraid of going to jail," said Pires. "That was my impression of it."
Lungarelli, an auto mechanic who was
living just up the road from the Prospect Hill Street establishment, declined to comment for this article. He said that his lawyer had advised him to not speak to the media "as much as I would like to give my version."
Lungarelli pleaded not guilty in District Court last week and was released on personal recognizance. He is scheduled to return for a pretrial hearing on April 28.
The police say he bashed nine holes in Castways windows at around 2:30 a.m. on March 13, only six days after the city's only gay bar opened. A neighbor heard the culprit yelling the antigay remarks. Pires lives above the bar and was awakened during the attack. He saw t
he man and dialed 911. But by the time the police arrived, the suspect was gone.
Newport detectives say they cracked the case earlier this month. They arrested Lungare
lli on A
pril 8.<
br>
P
ires said the attac
k struck him as "so deliberate ... someone paid us a visit ... It's intimidation, intimdation through violence." It was even worse t
hat the man police say did it was living a few doors away, he said..
"I said, 'You are my neighbor,' " Pires recalls telling Lungarelli. "That's scary."
"It was an apology but it didn't have much heart in it, and I looked for it," said Pires. "Show some real remorse about what you did."
Toward the end of the meeting, "I told him I was not the person who was going to decide his fate. I said he needed to talk to a judge and lawyer, and he probably shouldn't be here and that he should go."
In fact, during his subsequent arraignment, a judge took the custom
ary step of ordering Lungarelli not to have contact with the victims.
"The last thing he said to me on the way out," Pires recounted, "w
as 'Well
, I tried.&#
39; "<b
r>http://www.projo.com/eastbay/content/projo...t19.1d64af.html