Hate crime charges against a white Howard Beach teen who allegedly threatened to set fire to his Guyanese neighbor's home and kill the man's family last summer were dropped by a grand jury, a spokesman for Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said Tuesday.
The Guyanese man, Kris Gounden, claimed he was being harassed by his white neighbors so that he would move out of the community and accused 19-year-old Michael Hussey of threatening his family."The DA really didn't, I felt, put their best foot forward on this," Gounden said in an interview, referring to the case against Hussey, who he said confronted him at his Bayview Avenue home and threatened to torch his home.
"One person told me to move out and move into a more minority-friendly neighborhood," Gounden said. "Our home has been threatened."
Kevin Ryan, a spokesman for the Queens DA, said a grand jury returned a "no-true bill" against Hussey March 27, meaning they declined to file criminal charges against the teen.
Hussey had been charged with menacing and criminal trespass both as a hate crime and criminal possession of a weapon, which did not carry the hate crime designation.
"After thoroughly reviewing the evidence... the grand jury concluded there did not exist sufficient evidence for Michael Hussey to be criminally responsible," Brown said in a statement.
In an interview with the TimesLedger shortly after the Aug. 11 incident, Gounden claimed Hussey came onto his property and started "ranting and raving. He comes back with a baseball bat and he goes at it fully with the N-word."
Gounden said he plans to take his case to a civil rights organization.
"The only thing left for me now is [the Rev. Al Sharpton's] National Action Network or the NAACP," he said.
Gounden said he moved into his Howard Beach home in July 2006 so he could be closer to John F. Kennedy International Airport, where he works as an independent aircraft technician.
Besides his claims against Hussey, Gounden said neighbors urinated on a bush on his property, damaged his fence, blocked his driveway and complained about his home to city agencies.
"I want to be left alone," Gounden said. "I spent thousands of dollars on my properties and on legal fees."
