Tag: Hate Crime

A judge sentenced the man convicted of killing transgender Greeley teen Angie Zapata to an additional 60 years in prison on top of a life sentence without parole already handed down last month. Finding Allen Andrade, 32, guilty of habitual criminal charges based on his six prior felony convictions, Weld County District Court Judge Marcelo Kopcow on Friday afternoon quadrupled the maximum sentences for each of Andrade's convictions on three other crimes surrounding the murder, including a bias-motivated, or hate crime.

Weld County District Attorney Ken Buck's landmark hate-crime prosecution of a man accused of murdering a transgender Greeley teen could prove "very much a mixed bag" for the Republican, who emerged Tuesday as a candidate in the 2010 U.S. Senate election, political observers say.

An impassioned U.S. Rep. Betsy Markey invoked the brutal murders of gay college student Matthew Shepard and transgender Greeley woman Angie Zapata in her remarks Wednesday afternoon supporting federal hate-crimes legislation on the floor of the House of Representatives.

A North Carolina Republican called the idea that Wyoming college student Matthew Shepard was murdered because he was gay "a hoax" in the debate currently under way on the floor of the House of Representatives over legislation to expand federal hate-crimes law to cover sexual orientation.

The day after Weld County District Attorney Ken Buck appeared before a roaring crowd on the steps of the State Capitol at a Tea Party protest, the veteran prosecutor was back in court, leading the charge on two of the more contentious prosecutions Colorado has seen in the last year.

In the wake of Colorado's first successful prosecution of a hate-crime law against the killer of a transgender murder victim, both The Denver Post and The Greeley Tribune say it's time to pass national legislation that would add sexual orientation and gender identity to federal anti-bias laws.

U.S. Rep. Jared Polis, who was elected to Congress in 2008 as an openly gay man, urged the passage of pending federal hate-crimes legislation in the wake of Wednesday's conviction on murder and bias-motivated, or hate-crimes charges of the man accused in the brutal death of Angie Zapata, a transgender Greeley woman.

Surrounded by family and fighting back tears, Gonzalo Zapata expressed grief over the loss of his sister and anger at the man convicted earlier Wednesday afternoon in the death of Angie Zapata, an 18-year-old transgender woman who was bludgeoned to death by Allen Andrade last summer in her Greeley apartment.

A state group dedicated to fighting violence against gays cheered the guilty verdict handed down Wednesday against a man accused of beating to death an 18-year-old Greeley transgender woman in her apartment last summer.

GREELEY — A man convicted Wednesday of using a fire extinguisher to crush the skull of a transgender Greeley woman was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole just over an hour after a jury returned guilty verdicts on all four counts charged, including first-degree murder and hate-crime charges. Weld District Judge Marcelo Kopcow imposed the mandatory life sentence on Allen Andrade, 32, for murdering Angie Zapata, 18, last summer in Greeley.