Witness In Bat-Attack Trial Says Racial Epithet Has Lost 'Sting'

POSTED: 8:40 am EDT June 6, 2006 UPDATED: 8:55 am EDT June 6, 2006

NEW YORK -- A racial epithet allegedly used by a white teenager as he attacked a black man with a baseball bat has lost its "sting," a hip-hop music producer told jurors.

"It's been permutated and morphed by a generation of younger people who moved it around and changed it into a matter of parlance," defense witness Gary Jenkins, who is black, testified Monday about the epithet, which has been referred to in court as "the N-word."

Nicholas Minucci, 19, is charged with assault and robbery as a hate crime. He is accused of using the word as he attacked Glenn Moore in Howard Beach, a Queens neighborhood that also was the scene of an infamous racial attack in the 1980s.

"The sting has been taken from it," Jenkins said of the epithet.

The prosecution has argued that Minucci picked on Moore solely because he was black and had ventured into the teenager's mostly white neighborhood. He could face up to 25 years in prison if convicted.

Jenkins, who is also an entertainment lawyer, testified Monday that he would have to know more about the defendant's background before he could determine whether he spoke the word as a hip-hop "aficionado" or as a racist.

"A white kid with gold fronts and sagging britches, wearing his hat sideways ... is an official hip-hopper and he gets a pass," he said.

Jenkins said he is president of the urban division of Sasso Records. He was formerly the general manager of Uptown Records where he worked with artists including Sean "Diddy" Combs and Mary J. Blige, he said.

Under cross-examination, the producer acknowledged that he did not know what Minucci was thinking on the night of the attack. He also said he considered the word "hateful."

"My people have been hung by that word. ... I wish it would disappear," he said.

PRESERVED FROM USENET