The State - News from Sept. 9, 1988

Three Huntington Beach men accused in a recent gay-bashing attack in Laguna Beach will be prosecuted under a new state law making it a civil rights offense to harass people because of their sexual orientation, prosecutors said. The three men, described by prosecutors as members of a “skinhead” gang, also face charges of attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon and inflicting great bodily injury in connection with separate attacks July 15 on two gay men in Laguna Beach’s Heisler Park. The defendants, John Michael Moore, 22, Stephen James Walter, 18, and Aaron F. Compean, 19, were originally charged with the lesser offense of assault following the attacks on a 23-year-old man from San Diego County, and a 48-year-old man of Los Angeles County. The civil rights and attempted murder charges were added to the initial charges, after prosecutors determined that the pair had gone to Laguna Beach expressly to beat up homosexuals.