A man accused in the murder of an Ecuadorian immigrant he thought was gay laughed during his retrial yesterday when a witness described the way the victim walked down a Brooklyn street with his brother before the heinous attack.
Keith Phoenix, 30, chuckled when his cousin, Demetrius Nathaniel, told jurors about the moment before the Dec. 7, 2008, attack.
“They looked like a married couple,” Nathaniel said. “You know, they were arm-in-arm.”
Phoenix, whose last trial for murder as a hate crime ended in a hung jury, laughed and appeared to say, “Stupid, man. He’s stupid.”
He drew a swift rebuke from Judge Patricia DiMango.