8th suspect in anti-gay attacks in Bronx surrenders

An eighth suspect in brutal anti-gay attacks in the Bronx turned himself in Saturday, New York City Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said.

Accompanied by his attorney, Elmer Confresi, 23, surrendered at the 46th Precinct in the Bronx, Kelly said.

Seven young men were arrested Thursday and charged in a hate crime that included abduction, assault, robbery and sodomizing one man with a wooden plunger and another with a small baseball bat.

A ninth suspect, Ruddy Vargas-Perez, 22, is still at large. Vargas-Perez had agreed to turn himself in on Friday, but didn't show up, Kelly said.

"The seven individuals we have in custody have made statements, video confessions or statements concerning their acts involving this case, but I wouldn't characterize it as remorse," Kelly said.

The suspects, members of a gang that calls itself the Latin King Goonies, allegedly attacked a 17-year-old who wanted to join them. After learning that he had sex with a man, 30, the gang allegedly took him On Oct. 3 to an empty apartment in the Morris Heights section of the Bronx where they beat him and sodomized him with a wooden plunger handle. A second teenager was also attacked.

The older man was then lured to the apartment, where he was sodomized with a small baseball bat and beaten, police said. The older man's brother was then robbed and beaten in his apartment, police said.

"Like many New Yorkers, I was sickened by the brutal nature of these crimes and saddened by the anti-gay bias that contributed to them," Mayor Michael Bloomberg said at the news conference. "When you hear the details of what occurred, 'torture' is the only word that comes to mind."