Sugrue: Denies charges of assualt and hate crimes against gay man. Photo: MS Police
A Massachusetts teenager has been charged with assault and hate crimes against a 50 year-old gay man.
Jackson Sugrue, 19, pleaded not guilty Monday to charges of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, assault, witness intimidation and committing a hate crime.
Investigators said the older man claimed he was starved and terrorized over four days in a church basement by Sugrue, because he is gay.
The man told police officers: ‘he had escaped from a church’s basement where he was kept against his will for four days,’ according to documents filed at Framingham District Court.
He told investigators he and Sugrue had smoked crack in the basement of Philadelphia Baptist Church in Framingham, the Boston Herald reported.
Philadelphia Baptist Church, Framingham MA. Photo: Google Map data
Although the two were not in a dating relationship, Sugrue had ‘used him for favors of borrowing clothes, a place to sleep from time to time, and money because Mr. Sugrue knew that (the accuser) really liked him,’ the newspaper said, citing a police report.
According to court documents, the older man had been sleeping at the church for three weeks while looking for more permanent housing.
Accuser said teen became ‘crazy and dangerous’
The accuser said the teen became ‘crazy and very dangerous’ once they began doing drugs on 27 June.
Over the next four days, he said Sugrue denied him food, water and the use of his cellphone. He also reported that the teenager bashed him over the head with a coffee table and stepped on his neck after repeatedly screaming at him, ‘I know you like me. I know you are gay.’
However, the older man told police that the teen never told him he couldn’t leave and he never tried to. He said he remained because he was afraid Sugrue ‘would harm him or maybe even kill him.’
The newspaper reported that, when asked to describe his alleged abuser, the accuser told officers: ‘He is beautiful with a beautiful body.’
Sugrue is currently out free on $1,000 cash bail pending his next court date at the start of August. The paper reported that he is receiving medical care for the incident.
Teresa Sugrue, the teenager’s mother told the Boston Herald the experience left her son ‘traumatized’. At the time of his arrest last Saturday, he was already on probation for allegedly stealing a $500 bicycle last year from a woman.
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