Teens who targeted gay man plead guilty

Three teens who pelted a historic Irving College home with paintballs because the owner is a homosexual were placed on probation Monday with the juvenile judge ordering them to write an apology and mow yards for five weekends.

?This was such an idiotic, bone-headed thing to do,? said Juvenile Court Judge Larry Ross to teens Huston Simons, Curtis A. Mullins and Grant M. Hoover. ?What in the world would you have done if he had thought you were firing real guns and began returning fire as half the people in Warren County probably would have done. Did you think about that? A person can?t retreat any further than his own home.?

The teens entered guilty pleas to petitions charging delinquency to the act of vandalism over $500, a crime which have been a felony if the boys were adults. Instead, the youths were placed on probation for six months, during which time they will have an 8 p.m. curfew and be required to mow lawns for five weekends as part of their 40 hours public service work.

The teens must also each write a letter of apology to the victim, Neal Anthony, and each pay $1,000 restitution. If they finish probation without a problem, they will have their records erased under a judicial diversion.

The teens avoided stiffer sentences after the judge learned none of them had prior records, with Judge Ross noting it was positive the youths all had their parents present during court.

The boys marked the first of what is expected to be many arrests for vandalism to the 150-year-old Anthony house, which has been hit with three waves of vandalism over the past few months. Anthony believes he has been targeted because he is a homosexual, noting slurs painted on the side of his house by separate vandals who vandalized his home with spray paint.

Lawmen say the boys admitted targeting Anthony due to his sexual orientation. They are not suspects in the other cases, police say.

Had the youths been adults, they not only could have faced confinement for up to two years but they could have also been charged under the federal hate crime and civil intimidation law. Lawmen are continuing to look for those responsible for the pair of spray paint vandalisms on the house.