“I went in there prepared to be disappointed and I came out impressed,” Hoch said in an interview with the New York Times about the hearing. While these were not the outcomes that Hoch initially sought, he told reporters outside the courtroom that he was pleased to see the case being taken seriously and recognized the essay assignment as “a learning opportunity for the defendant.” Trump following the dedication ceremony for the mural that summer, at which other participants called for its destruction.Īpparently searching for restorative rather than punitive solutions, Judge Suskauer suggested Jerich may visit and clean the site weekly, accompanied by his father, as a reminder of his actions. In addition to defacing the artwork, Jerich was identified at a birthday rally for former President Donald J. Hoch was pressing for a one-year jail sentence for Jerich and said his actions were “clearly a hate crime,” telling the judge that LGBTQ+ groups “don’t want the defendant anywhere near our organization or our missions.” He also asked that Jerich be banned for life from the Pride Intersection. But if Judge Suskauer was expecting a hostile or remorseless defendant, he found himself surprised.
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Only three days later, after authorities traced Jerich’s license plate from cellphone footage, he turned himself in. Last year, Jerich admitted to vandalizing the “ Pride Intersection” mural, a giant Pride flag painted across an intersection in Delray Beach, by using his pickup truck to draw 15-food skid marks over the artwork. The essay will be due by Jerich’s final sentencing date in June.
During a hearing last week, Judge Suskauer ordered him to write a 25-page essay about the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting, in which a homicidally homophobic gunman killed 49 people at a gay club in Orlando. In a glimmer of hope for restorative justice, Judge Scott Suskauer of the 15th Judicial Circuit of Florida issued an unconventional penalty in the case of 20-year-old Alexander Jerich, who pled guilty to defacing a beloved LGBTQ+ pride street mural in South Florida last year. The “Pride Intersection” mural in Delray Beach, Florida (all images courtesy Rand Hoch)