Accused Ringleader Acquitted in Racial Murder

The accused ringleader of a white mob that killed a black teen-ager and inflamed already heated racial tensions in the nation’s largest city was acquitted Friday of murder.

Keith Mondello, 19, was cleared of all murder and manslaughter counts but convicted of lesser charges in the fatal shooting Aug. 23 of Yusuf Hawkins, 16, whose death became New York City’s most explosive racial case in years.

The verdict came a day after a separate jury convicted the triggerman, Joseph Fama, of murder in the killing last summer in the predominantly white Brooklyn neighborhood of Bensonhurst.

Mondello, who stood with tears streaming down his face, was found guilty of riot, weapons possession and a series of lesser charges.

The courtroom erupted into pandemonium as the verdict was announced in state Supreme Court in Brooklyn. The Mondello family embraced in tears as the Hawkins family shouted at them. One said, “You’ll get yours.”

A second jury Thursday convicted Mondello’s co-defendant, Fama, 19, of second-degree murder for showing “depraved indifference to human life” for being part of the attack in which Hawkins was shot twice and died on the street. Fama had been accused of being the gunman but was acquitted of intentional murder.

Mondello’s attorney, Stephen Murphy, said, “I think Mr. Mondello was happy with the verdict. But when a young man’s dead and another young man’s in jail for murder, I don’t think there’s any winners.”

Mondello faces one to four years in jail. His bail was revoked after the verdict and he was to be sent directly to jail.

Outside, two groups of demonstrators numbering about 150 marched to the back of the courthouse, overturned and ripped up four blue police barricades, and scattered parts of them onto the courthouse steps and onto cars. Angry demonstrators shouted, “We’re going to burn Bensonhurst, to burn it down. Burn, baby, burn!” With raised fists they shouted, “Yusuf, Yusuf, no peace, no justice!” They threatened a boycott of white businesses in the city.

A free-lance photographer was injured in the melee.

As jury forewoman Mimi Snowden announced the first “not guilty,” Mondello’s father, Michael, screamed out, “Oh, thank God” and began to sob hysterically.

“It’s God! It’s Jesus! Jesus has risen!,” the elder Mondello exclaimed.

On the other side of the aisle, relatives and supporters of the Hawkins family screamed, pointed at the jurors and shouted threats.

“He did it, he did it!” several of them screamed as the verdicts were read by Snowden.

Two people were ejected from the courtroom for their outbursts.

Mondello and Fama were the first of eight young men to be tried in the slaying that triggered months of bitter racial demonstrations, marches and vigils--all in the midst of last year’s mayoral race.

The killing fueled accusations of bigotry, and the trial, which coincided with several other racially divisive incidents, heightened tension to the point that Mayor David Dinkins went on television to appeal for calm.

In his closing argument, Assistant Dist. Atty. Paul Burns said Mondello organized the white mob that stalked the black youths, encircled Hawkins and left him dying on the street after he was shot.

“Does one of these guys stick around to help Yusuf Hawkins?” Burns asked. “No. They all run. Like a mob they came, like a mob they left. Group courage masking individual cowardice.”

Mondello, his hands crossed on the defense table, looked skyward and began crying as the verdict was read. After the announcement on the final count, he hugged his lawyer.

Mondello was found guilty of riot, three counts of unlawful imprisonment, three counts of menacing, four counts of discrimination, and one count of weapons possession.

In the hours before last August’s attack, about 30 young white men, many armed with baseball bats, had gathered near the home of Gina Feliciano, Mondello’s former girlfriend.

According to testimony during the trial, Mondello and Feliciano argued after she told him she was dating black and Hispanic youths and said she had invited a group of them to her 18th birthday party.

According to the defense, the dispute between Mondello and Feliciano escalated after she told him some of her new friends were coming into the neighborhood to beat him up, and he recruited his friends and armed them with the bats.

As the gang of youths milled about the street, Hawkins and three black friends came into the neighborhood to look at a used car. The mob mistook them for the rumored group of Feliciano’s friends and attacked.

In the melee, four shots rang out, and Hawkins fell mortally wounded on the sidewalk.

During the trial, the most damaging evidence against Mondello was a statement he gave to police shortly after the killing. In it, he described recruiting his neighborhood friends for the attack.

Feliciano testified that Mondello bragged about getting ready to attack any blacks who came to her birthday party.

A neighborhood woman testified that she saw the mob run by seconds before the attack on Hawkins, with Mondello in the lead.