
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, May 18, 1990                   TAG: 9005180436
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: NEW YORK                                LENGTH: Short

RACIAL-SLAYING DEFENDANT FOUND GUILTY IN BROOKLYN

A jury Thursday found a 19-year-old white man guilty of second-degree murder in the killing of a black teen-ager in Bensonhurst, the most serious racial incident to polarize the city since the 1986 Howard Beach case.

Joseph Fama of Brooklyn, accused of being the triggerman in the killing of 16-year-old Yusuf Hawkins, faces a maximum sentence of 25 years to life in prison.

Jury forewoman Tonya Bailey delivered the verdict shortly after 7 p.m. The decision followed 10 tension-wrought days of deliberations during which police lined the steps of Brooklyn state Supreme Court to quell occasional scuffles.

Hawkins and three friends were attacked by a gang of whites last Aug. 23 after they ventured into the mostly white Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn to look at a used car.

The verdict, the first conviction in the case, was greeted with shouts of glee outside the courtroom by Hawkins' family and supporters, and chants of "Yusuf! Yusuf!"

Fama was found guilty on 13 of 15 counts, including second-degree murder by depraved indifference to human life, riot, unlawful imprisonment, menacing, discrimination, and criminal possession of a weapon in the third degree.

by CNB