Gang Member Gets Seven Years For 2010 Gay Bashing

A Bronx man received a seven-year prison sentence Friday for his role in a horrific 2010 gay bashing attack that involved beating and sodomizing two teenagers and a 30-year-old man. He is the first of eight members of the "Latin King Goonies" gang to be sentenced for this crime.

Nelson Falu, 20 and two other participants in the crime took guilty pleas in June. As reported in the New York Daily News, Prosecutor Theresa Gottlieb told Bronx Supreme Court Justice Steven Barrett her office made the plea offer because the victims don't want to relive "the nightmare" on the witness stand.

The defendants were accused of kidnapping, imprisoning, beating, torturing and sodomizing two teens and a 30 year old man accused of having a relationship with a young recruit of the gang.

As initially reported in 2010 by the New York Daily News - When gang members learned the 30-year-old gay man was having sex with a fledgling member of their crew, they demanded $2,000 to keep him safe from neighborhood thugs, records say.

When the victim failed to come up with the money, the gang allegedly sodomized him and his 17-year-old lover with a mini-baseball bat.

A third 17-year-old was also beaten and tortured for hours and the brother of the 30-year-old was robbed and left tied up with tape on his face.

Cases against the remaining five members of the gang involved in the crime are still pending.