Ruddy Vargas-Perez
Courtesy of NY Daily News
The eight defendants accused of the savage anti-gay torture spree that shocked the city were laughing it up in lockup Sunday, a cellmate told the Daily News.
Apparently, they found being branded degenerate monsters amusing.
"They thought it was funny - one of them was laughing. He was saying 'I'll take five years.' They were all joking around like it was funny," said Danny, 25.
"They had no fear."
The witness, who was picked up for marijuana possession and spent time in the holding cell with the Bronx crew before their arraignments, said he expects they will soon stop laughing.
"I took it as they didn't understand what they did yet - they're going away for a long time," he said.
The eight said nothing in court as weeping relatives watched as they were charged with what Mayor Bloomberg called an act of "pure evil."
They stand accused of torturing and terrorizing a gay man, his older brother, and two teenagers over the course of many hours Oct. 3 in an abandoned home in Morris Heights they used as a clubhouse.
Two of the victims were sodomized - one with a wooden plunger handle and the other with a small plastic baseball bat. One teen was forced to burn his older lover's genitals with a cigarette.
"Is it true you're a f----t?" ringleader Idelfonso (Cheto) Mendez demanded of his bound, captive victims before punching them repeatedly in the face, prosecutors said.
They said he forced one victim to choose between being beaten by a pipe or a bat.
The eight members of a penny ante Bronx crew who call themselves the Latin King Goonies face a raft of charges including gang assault, sexual assault, robbery, weapons possession and menacing - all as hate crimes, which ups the penalties.
The gang assault count alone is enough to put them away for 25 years.
They were all charged as adults, even though, as Judge Harold Adler noted, five are "not even old enough to vote."
None of the defendants - Mendez, 23; Elmer Confresi, 23; David Rivera, 21; Bryan Almonte, 17; Nelson Falu, 17; Denis Peitars, 17; Steven Caraballo, 17; and Brian Cepeda, 16, all of the Bronx - entered pleas. They are due back in court Oct. 14.
All but Peitars and Caraballo, who had no priors, were held without bail.
A ninth suspect, Rudy Vargas-Perez, 22, remained at large.
"Given how much we know, we'll get him," the mayor said.
Speaking at East Ward Baptist Church in Harlem, Bloomberg said such a "despicable" act cannot be understood.
"Over the past few days, I've kept asking myself, 'how can one human be so inhuman to another, simply on the basis of who they are?' What kind of twisted logic spurs...a large group of men to show their 'toughness' by ganging up on helpless individuals?"
Two of the four victims were in hiding, still terrified, cops said.
In court, tearful family members said their boys were innocent.
"I know my son. He's not like that. I raised a good boy," said Caroline Falu. "My son wasn't there, but my condolences to the family."
Defense lawyers said most of the suspects went along with the assault out of fear of Mendez.
Side Bar ~ Their attractive young men, yet, they appear to be so evil...I don't understand!
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