10/13/2005
Orlando Man Set "Hate Crime" Fire Himself
Last August I reported on a young gay couple victimized by arsonists. Chris Robertson and Paul Day lived in a trailer park outside Orlando and came home to find their place torched and the words "Die Fag" sprayed in paint on their doorstep.
The sad news I have to report today is that one of them actually lit the fire. Chris Robertson confessed to lighting it because he wanted the insurance money, and he used the anti-gay epithet as a "scare tactic" so his partner would want to move from the area. His partner Paul Day had no knowledge of any of this.
Aside from the selfish act of lighting one's home (and one's partner's home) on fire for insurance money, to manipulate whole communities with a false hate crime is more than reprehensible.
Robertson has been charged "with one count of arson, burning to defraud an insurer, two counts of false and fradulent insurance claims and making a false report to a law enforcement officer." He's already in jail on an unrelated charge.
Chris Robertson Set Hate-Crime Fire Himself [queer day]
Arrest Made in Hate Crime Arson [the ledger]
Related
Young, Gay, and Hated in Florida [tr]
Posted 9:24 AM EST by Andy in Current Affairs | Permalink
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This sort of thing happens more often than one might first think, and police look closely for it.
Here in Iowa, several years ago at the University of Iowa the dental school was shut down because of anonymous racist threatening emails. The person ordered the school to stop enrolling minorities or violence would occur. They traced the emails to a computer on campus, set up a surveillance camera, and caught a black woman in the act of sending them.
Also here in Coralville a black man's car was torched after being painted with racist epithets. He confessed he did it himself.
These sad incidents happen all the time.
Posted by: Alan | Oct 13, 2005 9:32:38 AM
Here is a link to the dental school story, from 2000:
http://snipurl.com/cbcj
Posted by: Alan | Oct 13, 2005 9:34:14 AM
Well if theyre from Titusville then im not too surprised...the whole town is trash
Posted by: Mac Adkins | Oct 13, 2005 9:37:24 AM
Kelly called this out in the comments section as a possible outcome of this story back when tr first posted it back in august, and damn if he (or she) wasn't right. Everyone owes Kelly a drink.
Posted by: b mac | Oct 13, 2005 9:43:11 AM
I was angry and upset when I first heard this story, now I feel even moreso.
I wonder what the unrelated charge is.
Posted by: Ed | Oct 13, 2005 10:03:10 AM
Flaming Queen Torches Trailer! Could this be Sordid Lives II, the Revenge of Brother Boy???
Posted by: beh | Oct 13, 2005 10:04:06 AM
He's already in jail on another charge? Oh, no! Another queer sociopath? Seems like movie material to me. I hope the idiot's boyfriend knows enough not to stand by his man!
Posted by: Bill | Oct 13, 2005 10:56:58 AM
OMG...we're just like everyone else. False crime reports in conjunction with insurance fraud are extremely commonplace. Remember that when people start with the "ooohh...look at the gays."
Posted by: PHDinNYC4Dems | Oct 13, 2005 11:34:43 AM
Look for a press conference in front of The Abbey with Reichen announcing he's being considered for the role of Chris in the E! movie version.
I smelled this, for whatever reason, when I first saw the story, and, while other minority groups do similar things, I think they hurt us even more because the general public refuses to believe that real homophobic attacks--from the verbal to physical--happen that often. In too many minds we're all rich singles bitching just to hear our own voices and to get unwarranted attention. This is what angers me the most about the recent "Time" piece on gay youth, it's full of too many pull quotes that are ammunition for the Right Wing to oppose greater legal protections for gays of all ages. One of the worst examples of another fag reporter [yes, he is] bending over so far to be "objective" that he ended up with his head up his ass.
Posted by: Tagg | Oct 13, 2005 12:02:14 PM
Unrelated charge = possesion (crystal meth)?
Wouldn't be too far of a stretch.
Posted by: Tread | Oct 13, 2005 3:26:48 PM
white trash knows no sexuality.
Posted by: CriticalRN | Oct 13, 2005 3:32:07 PM
Color me twisted but, white trash boys are kind of hot. Who's with me?
Posted by: Satan's Lapdog | Oct 13, 2005 5:19:47 PM
White trash knows no sexuality, but two weeks ago this hate crime was because of the evil Republicans, remember?
According to Andy, "hate is very much alive and well in this country." Apparently, so is greed and opportunism.
I wonder if Nanairen is going to get his money back?
Posted by: Mitch | Oct 13, 2005 5:37:54 PM
Ah, Mitch. We thought you'd crawled back under your RED State, WHITE Skin, and BLEW Everyone You Could And Then Felt Guilty About It So You Became A Repugnant rock and died. Silly moi: I forgot what they say about cockroaches--particularly cocksucking cockroaches.
Posted by: Leland | Oct 14, 2005 2:02:09 AM
Hate is alive and well. And its funded by people like Mitch. Remember Mitch, save a few dollars for the Karl Rove Defense Fund.
Posted by: Jeff | Oct 14, 2005 9:03:22 AM
Thanks BMac for remembering/noticing my post back in August. It pains me, again, to turn out to be right. It hurts the credibility of ALL OF US when folks pull the hate crime victim card and it turns out to be a hoax. I spent months investigating a case similar to this where an African-American family reported a series of hate crimes - a maltov cocktail thrown at their home; several threatening, bigoted notes left on the family's car; mysteriously broken windows at the home. We worked with the family to set up surveillance cameras at the home and sent undercover officers along with the family members for several weeks on end. Funny, all the "hate" suddenly stopped. Turns out months later that we wasted a lot of time because the mother didn't like the house that HUD placed her in so she made herself a victim of hate and broke her own windows, fire bombed her own house and wrote her own notes. That's AFTER she appeared on TV as a victim; the community had a fundraiser to help them out financially and several neighbors spent countless restless nights worrying that their neighborhood was being overtaken by anti-black criminals.
I now find myself always supportive of hate crime victims but sadly, forever skeptical.
Posted by: Kelly | Oct 14, 2005 10:21:45 AM
Oh, BMac I'm the cute BOY version of the "Kelly" name. ;-) Well, maybe the cute part is up for argument. But I am a boy (I think). haha
Posted by: Kelly | Oct 14, 2005 10:25:28 AM
For years now, whenever I read about a hate crime I always wonder if it's the real thing, or someone looking for something--money, publicity, attention. It's just so easy, and those incentives can be overpowering for some people.
Of course, no one can can air such suscpicions until afterwards, but I had my doubts about this story when you blogged it. Still, I tend to think people should be more skeptical about reports of hate crimes--esp ones that don't involve battery, or obviously murder.
Posted by: chuck | Oct 15, 2005 8:46:26 PM
I've commented on Mitch's comments before, too, but this time he's right. The evil Republicans have so many other things for which we can legitimately call them traitorous scum who should leave this country, we shouldn't squander it on the lies of greedy, opportunistic, tweekers. Thanks for your insight, Mitch.
Posted by: PSMike | Oct 16, 2005 6:12:40 PM