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Brooklyn Man Pleads Guilty in Transgender Woman’s 2013 Death

  

       

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

© Mario Tama/Getty Images People embrace before a vigil for slain transgender woman Islan Nettles at Jackie Robinson Park in Harlem on August 27, 2013 in New York City. A Brooklyn man who fatally beat a transgender woman after a chance encounter in Harlem in 2013 pleaded guilty on Monday to manslaughter in exchange for a sentence of 12 years in prison, prosecutors said.

The man, James Dixon, 25, took the offer from Justice Daniel P. Conviser just before jury selection was to begin in his trial in State Supreme Court in Manhattan. On Friday, Justice Conviser ruled that Mr. Dixon’s videotaped confession to prosecutors could be used as evidence, making an acquittal more unlikely.

The plea bargain was not supported by the Manhattan district attorney’s office. The lead prosecutor, Nicholas Viorst, had demanded a prison sentence of at least 17 years if Mr. Dixon pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter.

In his confession, Mr. Dixon said he met the transgender woman, Islan Nettles, on the street in Harlem just after midnight on Aug. 17, 2013. Under questioning, he told the police he started flirting with Ms. Nettles, unaware she was transgender, and became enraged when one of his friends starting mocking him.

Mr. Dixon admitted that he punched Ms. Nettles in the face, knocking her down, then punched her a second time while she lay on the sidewalk. “I just didn’t want to be fooled,” he said.

Ms. Nettles, a 21-year-old assistant at a fashion company, died five days later of head injuries she sustained when her head hit the sidewalk. Prosecutors say the evidence shows she was struck repeatedly while she lay on the pavement, ramming her head into the concrete.

Her killing incensed transgender people in New York, prompting vigils and protests. Many transgender people saw in her case a distillation of irrational violence they often face because of their sexual identity and orientation.

Advocates for transgender women who were in court for Mr. Dixon’s trial said they were disappointed that the sentence was not longer. They said they would ask the United States attorney’s office to consider bringing federal civil rights charges against him.

“Twelve years isn’t enough,” Mariah Lopez, an advocate who is transgender, said.

Judges have wide leeway in intentional manslaughter cases because state law allows them to sentence a person to a prison term between five and 25 years.

Mr. Dixon, who has been in jail since his arrest, is scheduled to be sentenced on April 19.

Other transgender women, however, said they believed the sentence sent a strong message that they could not be targeted with impunity.

“Just knowing another man will not walk the streets free today the way other men have been able to when committing these kinds of crimes brings me joy,” Danielle Carter, 21, said.

Three days after the assault, Mr. Dixon turned himself in to the police and told a detective he had flown into “a blind fury” when he discovered he was talking to a transgender woman. The next morning, he was videotaped repeating the story for prosecutors.

Still, he was not charged until March 2015. Some witnesses had identified Paris Wilson, a casual friend of Mr. Dixon’s, as the attacker, slowing down the investigation as conflicting stories were sorted through. Charges were eventually dropped against Mr. Wilson.

There were initial reports that Ms. Nettles and her two transgender friends were heckled with anti-gay slurs before the attack, but law enforcement officials said they had little evidence of what words were exchanged before the first blow. Mr. Dixon claimed Ms. Nettles pushed him from behind, knocking him down, before he hit her.

The Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., decided against seeking an indictment of Mr. Dixon for a hate crime, a charge that requires proof that Mr. Dixon attacked Ms. Nettles “in whole or substantial part” because of her transgender status, a high hurdle.

“Members of the transgender community are far too often the targets of violent crime,” Mr. Vance said in a statement. “I hope that this conviction provides some comfort to Ms. Nettles’s family and friends.”