Attorney: Hate crime charge 'nonsense'

Four Oceanside men who have been charged in Suffolk County Supreme Court with beating two other men, with whom they allegedly had an argument, remain home on bail, awaiting indictment by a grand jury and their next court date on September 25.

The four young men, Justin Buckley, 17, Shane Buckley, 18, Gregory Gilbert, 20 and Nicholas Battaglia, 18, were arraigned in First District Court in Islip on July 22, charged with assault as a hate crime. In addition, Shane Buckley, Gilbert and Battaglia have been charged with gang assault.

The charging documents in the case allege that early on the morning of July 21, the two Buckley brothers, along with Gilbert and Battaglia were walking on Deer Park Avenue in Babylon at about 3:30 a.m. when they called across the street to ask two men how to get to the nearby train station. Words were apparently exchanged between the Oceanside teens and their two victims, although the court documents do not detail what was said or who started the argument that led to the beating. “The four assailants started yelling anti-gay slurs, crossed the street and attacked [the victims],” Suffolk County Assistant District Attorney Lawrence Opisso said at the arraignment.

Attorney Steven Politi, who represents Shane Buckley, told the Herald this week that he has done his own investigation and that the charges are ‘nonsense.”

“If the investigators who work for the Suffolk County district attorney do their own investigation, they will find that out,” Politi added. “There was neither a hate crime nor a gang assault involved in the incident.”

Politi said that the district attorney still has to go to the grand jury to seek a hate crime upgrade, that nothing can be done by the attorney’s for the four men until the next hearing date in September.

Each of the four charged men are represented by his own attorney. Justin Buckley, Shane’s younger brother, is represented by attorney Jonathan Manley; Battaglia is represented by William Keahon and Gilbert by Anthony Senft. The other attorney’s declined to comment on their client’s case, as did members of the Buckley family who were called for comment. The victims were taken to Good Samaritan Hospital Medical Center in West Islip, court papers said, where one was admitted with a broken nose.