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Story of the Day: New Details in Bronx Gay Bashing
Police interview records turned over to defense lawyers in the case of October’s bias attack reveal that the men accused-members of a street gang who call themselves the Latin King Goonies-were supposedly extorting one of their victims for protection money, the Daily News reports.

The crew allegedly demanded $2,000 from one of the victims, a 30-year-old man who was reportedly having sex with one of the gang’s younger members, and viciously beat and sodomized both men when he couldn’t pay up.

Accused ringleader ringleader Idelfonso Mendez and six of his cohorts face multiple hate crime charges, the article says. The men are due back in court next month.

Quick Hits:
Sen. Ruben Diaz, Sr. is planning a march against same-sex marriage for May 15, the same day as the Bronx Puerto Rican Day parade. The Rev. is presumably preparing to fight a gay-marriage bill that’s scheduled for a vote in Albany this spring, which has the support of Gov. Cuomo and a number of other Senate members.

A savvy parking garage owner in Mott Haven fended off two would-be burglars-one wielding a knife-with nothing but an apple. Impressive. Check out the video below.

The two young children who survived Monday’s deadly apartment fire on Prospect Avenue in Belmont are mourning the loss of their parents and older brother, who were killed in the blaze.

The owner of the building where the fire took place, before it went into foreclosure, also owned another foreclosed property on nearby 187th Street. That