King County Prosecutor Norm Maleng today announced the filing of felony charges of assault in the first degree and malicious harassment against two men who beat up and stabbed a man in the Capitol Hill neighborhood last month because he is gay.
Maleng described the assault as a hate crime and said his office will pursue an aggressive prosecution of the defendants.

“The purpose of the malicious harassment law is to deter and punish precisely the kind of behavior alleged in this case: random violence committed with the intent to intimidate or injure a member of a discrete group,” Maleng said. “It is disturbing to all of us that here, in 2004, we can still witness a hate-based crime like this,” he added.
Vadim Samusenko, 20, and David Kravchenko, 19, are charged with one count of assault in the first degree and one count of malicious harassment.

On the evening of June 27, Micah Painter was walking home from a club when the defendants spotted him from the pick-up truck they were riding in. The defendants began yelling insults at Painter because they thought he was gay.

Samusenko exited the pick-up truck and asked Painter if he was gay. When the victim said yes, Samusenko broke the end of a vodka bottle and began attacking Painter with the sharp end. The others exited the truck and joined in by kicking and punching the victim. Samusenko is accused of using the sharp end of the broken bottle to stab and slash the victim, who suffered several serious lacerations on his face, shoulder, and back. A witness overheard one of the defendants use a derogatory word for gays during the attack and tell Painter to “die.”

A juvenile was also arrested and is in custody. He is still under investigation and prosecutors could file charges by Monday against the seventeen-year-old suspect.
A man, who asked to remain anonymous, called in a tip to Crime Stoppers, which resulted in Wednesday’s arrest of the three suspects. Shortly after the attack on Painter, the witness had encountered the three men and a female at the Greyhound bus terminal near downtown Seattle. According to the witness, one of the defendants, who had blood on him, bragged about beating up and stabbing someone that evening.

The witness, who was initially threatened by one of the defendants, later asked to use the man’s cell phone to call his girlfriend, whose caller ID box recorded the phone number from the defendant’s cell phone. Seattle Police detectives used the phone number to track down the defendants to their homes in Bellingham.

The defendants remain in jail on $500,000 bail pending arraignment on July 26 in King County Superior Court. If convicted as charged, they could face a sentence 12 ½ to 15 ½ years in prison.

For more information, see: Hate Crime Charges Filed - Statement of King County Prosecutor Norm Maleng

Dated July 16, 2004