Daniel Rodriguez, the 22-year-old man accused of viciously beating Jack Price in 2009 because he is gay, was sentenced to 12 years in prison for hate crime. He pleaded guilty last year to first-degree robbery as a hate crime, even though his father didn't believe him. Rodriguez said in court, "Through the grace of God I hope someday Jack Price will forgive me."
Rodriguez and accomplice Daniel Aleman began hassling Price after accusing him of writing graffiti on the wall outside a Queens deli. Price wrote, "I told him it wasn't me. He then started hitting me and calling me a f***** and cursed at me in Spanish." Price wound up in the hospital for 22 days and had to recover from a broken jaw, broken ribs and two collapsed lungs. Aleman was sentenced to eight years in prison last month.
Price is now physically incapable of returning to his old superintendent job and has decided to move out of state. He said in court, "I need to start a new life because they took my old life from me...I cannot understand how anyone could hate me or anybody else this much to cause him this much pain and suffering...It shows how much hate they have inside of them."
