By Dustin Brown
The suspected killer of Julio Rivera, a gay man from Jackson Heights whose 1990 slaying helped ignite the borough’s gay rights movement, was murdered in Mexico earlier this month, authorities said.
Esat Bici, 30, was shot to death along with another man Oct. 2 in Tijuana, Mexico in an apparent drug-related assault six years after he jumped bail following the reversal of his conviction in Rivera’s murder, Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said.
“We never really thought we would ever see Esat Bici again,” said Daniel Dromm, a gay rights advocate and chairman of the Queens Lesbian and Gay Pride Committee. “It’s a very sad ending to a sad and tragic life.”
A fugitive wanted by federal, state and local authorities, Bici was identified Friday through a fingerprint check, said Brown, who condemned the 12-year-old hate crime in a statement released Saturday.
“The murder of Julio Rivera was a particularly horrendous crime carried out against a gay man solely because of his sexual orientation,” Brown said. “The taking of a life because of hate is conduct so deplorable that it must be condemned clearly and unequivocally.”
Bici and two other members of a skinhead gang allegedly used a knife and hammer to kill Rivera, a 29-year-old bartender who lived in Jackson Heights, after luring him into the schoolyard of PS 69 at 77-02 37th Ave. on July 2, 1990, Brown said.
They had apparently set out that evening with the intent of attacking a gay person, the DA said.
Bici and his two accomplices, Erik Brown and Daniel Doyle, were all found guilty of Rivera’s slaying, but the convictions of Bici and Brown were later reversed by the Appellate Division due to a procedural error committed by the presiding judge.
Freed on $350,000 bail, Bici was scheduled for a second trial but disappeared in May 1996, one day after Erik Brown pleaded guilty to manslaughter charges, the DA said.
He had been the focus of a manhunt for the past six years by detectives with the New York Police Department and the U.S. Marshals Service, and was profiled on the television program “America’s Most Wanted.”
“They made a commitment to the memory of Julio Rivera and they searched continuously for Bici so they could bring him to justice,” DA Brown said.
Rivera’s death represented a milestone for the borough’s gay community, inspiring people to take a stand for gay rights that ultimately led to the founding of the borough’s annual gay pride parade in 1992.
“It really marked the beginning of the gay rights movement in Queens. It was kind of like our Stonewall in Queens because from that came everything else,” Dromm said, alluding to the 1969 rebellion at a Manhattan bar that is considered the start of the gay rights movement nationwide. “It really galvanized the community to fight back.”
The more recent murder of Edgar Garzon, a gay man who was bludgeoned to death on a Jackson Heights street in August 2001, has inspired comparisons with Rivera’s slaying.
That case, which is believed to have been a hate crime, remains unsolved.
Reach reporter Dustin Brown by e-mail at Timesledger@aol.com or call 229-0300, Ext. 154.
