Federal prosecutors charged 3 Puerto Rican men with conspiracy to commit a hate crime against a transgender woman found killed in 2020
Three men were charged with conspiracy to commit hate crimes against a transgender woman.
Alexa Negrón Luciano was killed on February 24, 2020. Her death went viral on Puerto Rican social media.
Rapper Bad Bunny paid tribute to Luciano in a February 2020 appearance on "The Tonight Show."
Federal authorities have charged three men in Puerto Rico with conspiracy to commit a hate crime against a homeless transgender woman who was killed in the US commonwealth last year.
In court documents filed this week in the US District Court for the District of Puerto Rico, prosecutors said the suspects made the victim the "target of their assault because of her actual and perceived gender identity."
The 29-year-old victim, identified in court documents only by initials "A.N.L.", was killed in the city of Toa Baja in Puerto Rico on February 24, 2020. Using contextual clues in the case, "A.N.L." refers to Alexa Negrón Luciano, a trans woman killed in an event that directly corresponds with the court's new filings.
"It was further part of the conspiracy that the co-conspirators used a car to travel to multiple locations to get a paintball gun and paintballs to shoot and cause injury to A.N.L.," the indictment states.
The suspects charged in the indictment are identified as: Anthony Steven Lobos Ruiz, Jordany Rafael Laboy Garcia, and Christian Yamaurie Rivera Otero.
Luciano was accused of peeping in the women's bathroom of a McDonald's, an accusation that quickly spread across Puerto Rican social media. According to court filings, the three defendants saw Luciano on the side of a road and called her "la loca," or "the crazy woman."
The three men then quickly left the scene to purchase paintball guns and ammo before returning to taunt and ultimately shoot at Luciano, prosecutors said. According to the filing, one of the men recorded a video of the shooting and final moments. They posted it to social media.
Puerto Rican media labeled Luciano as a "man in a skirt" after her death, leading to backlash from the LGBTQ community and Puerto Rican rapper Bad Bunny. The artist paid tribute to Luciano in an appearance on "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon" by wearing a shirt that said, "They killed Alexa, not a man in a skirt" in Spanish.
With 45 confirmed killings, 2020 was the deadliest year on record for transgender people in the US. Six trans people were killed in Puerto Rico alone in 2020, the highest number on the island over the last decade.
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