Tony Stratton is an Argentinian American high school student in Peconic and a hate crime offender, responsible for assaults and murders of Latin American citizens with classmates Timothy Moore and Kyle Chase.
History[]
Tony’s mother Juanita came to America as a student, married, and had him as a son once their family settled in Peconic. Juanita was always a classist woman and looked down on undocumented Latin Americans because of their legal statuses. As this rubbed off on Tony, he and his basketball teammates were furious when their programs were cut back to make way for the new kids in their schools who need to acclimate past the language barriers.
Tony, Moore, and Chase would drive around in Tony’s family sedan and attack undocumented citizens in Peconic. They shot two men with Moore’s BB gun and beat up another man, Ramiro Lopez, taking videos Chase would later upload online, including school accounts only he and his coach had access to. Wanting to get more violent, and knowing the police were onto them, they started trolling for men in Manhattan when they were panhandling for work. They lured Oswaldo Morales into the car, where they beat him, branded him on his cheek with a heated Mexican peso, and threw him out the window he kicked and broke in the car. He went into a coma and never woke up. The next day, they found, branded, and beat to death Ray Alvarez, an American homeless auto worker, leaving him dead next to a dumpster with the brand at the scene.
The videos led to Peconic, and an auto mechanic who took Tony’s car at his shop identified him from his school’s yearbooks. Juanita stalled the police by pretending to be "hired help", but it barely lasted, and she kept Tony from being detained by them so she could call their family lawyer. Moore was identified through his BB gun and Tony signing his yearbook, and Chase was given up by his coach after the videos came to light. All three were arraigned on high bails and their passports were confiscated, but the videos were excluded from arguments the jury would be too personally motivated to convict the kids.
The trial went through ups and downs, from conservative coverage that made it to the jury at the risk of biasing them, which the parents had a hand in, to Ramiro being arrested by INS agents in the courtroom during the trial. They even had to bring Oswaldo back to America and pay his medical bills to tie his attack to Ray’s murder. However, Juanita’s classism, the evidence tying the crimes together, and even Chase taking a plea for testimony went in the prosecution’s favor.
Tony was found not guilty of murder and attempted murder but found guilty of assault and imprisoned for several years. The boys are open for another murder charge due to Oswaldo being taken off life support. (L&O: "Promote This!")
Known Victims[]
All of the following were committed with Timothy Moore and Kyle Chase
- Two unnamed men (assaulted; shot with a BB gun)
- Ramiro Lopez (assaulted; beaten)
- Oswaldo Morales (branded, beaten, and thrown out a car window; later died in the hospital)
- Ray Alvarez (branded and beaten to death; left by a dumpster postmortem)