An Idaho man attacked a transgender woman in August, according to police. On Wednesday, he was found guilty of a first-degree bias crime, second-degree assault and harassment.
Fred Constanza, a 37-year-old from Blackfoot, Idaho, was accused of repeatedly punching a transgender woman in the face after she used a women’s bathroom at Agate Beach State Park in Oregon, the Newport News Times reported in August.
“He just comes up and starts yelling something about me being a lady, thinking I’m a lady,” Jackson told KATU. “I just stand there and I don’t say anything. I don’t raise my hands. And he just blindsides me from the beginning and the rest was him dragging me around and continuing to punch me, and I’m just screaming. Someone heard and ran across the park and tackled this guy off of me.”
That attack on Aug. 24 shattered Lauren Jackson’s jaw and fractured her skull, The Oregonian reported.
The Newport News Times reported in August that Constanza’s wife was in the restroom at the same time as Jackson and complained to her husband that she had been harassed by a man.
“This is his opportunity to use this situation and hopefully come out the other end better or happier,” Jackson told KATU. “I understand what it feels like to have hate in your heart, and I’ve felt that in my life before, and I’m not going to pick that back up. It’s too heavy to hate someone for trying to find their own way, in their own way.”
Constanza will be sentenced Feb. 7 and jailed in Lincoln County, The Oregonian reported. The minimum sentencing for second-degree assault is five years and 10 months.
