Elliot Morales Convicted Of Hate Crime, Gets Life In Prison For Murdering Gay Man

Elliot Morales Convicted Of Hate Crime, Gets Life In Prison For Murdering Gay Man

insisted he is "not a bigot."

Elliot Morales, the New York drifter accused of murdering a gay man by shooting him at point-blank range in the West Village in May 2013, was found guilty on all counts by a Manhattan jury Wednesday.

Morales was convicted of murder as a hate crime after the court heard weeks of testimony regarding his explosive homophobic views, and determined the only motivation Morales had to murder 32-year-old Mark Carson was Mr. Carson’s sexuality.

Witnesses testified that an obviously intoxicated Morales had launched into an anti-gay tirade about 15 minutes before the early morning murder, when he burst into a local restaurant and brandished a silver revolver while hurling anti-gay epithets at a bartender, the New York Times reports.

Moments later and around the corner (pictured below), Morales pulled the revolver out once again during an argument he sparked with two passersby, Mark Carson and his friend, Danny Robinson.

According to testimony, Morales called the two openly gay men “faggots” and “gay wrestlers” before pointing the gun directly at Mr. Carson’s face and pulling the trigger.



Morales, who acted as his own attorney throughout the trial, insisted his crime wasn’t motivated by hate because he is bisexual and occasionally slept with transgender women in secret. He claimed he shot Mr. Carson in self-defense because he feared the two men were going to fight him.

“I, Elliot Morales, am not a bigot,” he said. “I don’t hate gays.”

Lead prosecutor Shannon Lucey, on the other hand, had a different opinion.

“This was bigotry, and this was unjustifiable rage,” Lucey told the courtroom. “The defendant was able to shoot Mark Carson over nothing because Mark Carson was nothing to the defendant. Mark Carson was nothing to the defendant but a subhuman fag.”