Additional charges were handed down Wednesday in the suspected bias killing of Michael Sandy at a Brooklyn rest stop earlier this month. Sandy, 29, was beaten and then chased onto the Belt Parkway, where he was hit by a car.
The Brooklyn district attorney’s office charged Anthony Fortunato, 20, making him the third man charged in the case.
Last week Ilya Shurov, 20, and John Fox, 19, received murder charges for the Oct. 8 attack. Sandy died five days later.
The three defendants are charged with numerous counts, including murder in the second degree as a hate crime and attempted robbery in the first degree as a hate crime. If convicted, they could serve 25 years to life in prison.
According to the DAšs office, the indictment cites a ‘little-used’ hate crimes statute in state law that calls for bias charges when the defendant attacks someone based on the assumption of the victim’s race, gender or sexual orientation.
Charges are also being weighed against a fourth suspect, Gary Timmins, 16, according to the DA’s office.