Gay rights group opening field office on Atlas Ave.

By Juanita Westaby

The Grand Rapids Press

GRAND RAPIDS -- As the Triangle Foundation prepares for an open house Tuesday, one local politician says there are two ways of looking at the location of a gay-rights organization in West Michigan.

"It's unfortunate to me that an organization like Triangle feels it needs to be here," said East Grand Rapids Mayor Cindy Bartman, noting that Triangle Foundation works to stop violence against gays.

The other way of seeing things is more hopeful.

"West Michigan is at least willing to open the conversation we need to get to know each other," Bartman said. "Through the identification of the things we have in common as people, we're going to find our way through this issue."

Bartman will be on hand at the open house, from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. at the Triangle Foundation's new field office at 343 Atlas Ave. SE.

She will greet guests and make remarks at the opening. She said her city has a long tradition of welcoming others, including being the only city in the area to vote against a ban on gay marriage. She said East Grand Rapids High School was the first in the area to form a Gay-Straight Alliance.

For Bartman, it's a "not really about tolerance. It's about acceptance."

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Family rejects talk of victim's secret gay lifestyle in Scarborough murder trial

GRAND RAPIDS -- When Steven Scarborough killed Victor Manious, he didn't just take the life of one man -- also lost was a family, a home and a community that knew Manious as a man of faith and honesty.

"He was always very peaceful," 22-year-old Yustina Manious said of her father. She spent the past two weeks listening to her father portrayed as having had a secret life of sexual encounters with other men, and even of being a violent sexual predator who died at the hands of a young man who told the jury he struck Manious with a bat after being sexually assaulted by the older man.

"I can't imagine something like this was even said," said Manious, who was at a church conference with her mother last July when her father was killed, stuffed into the trunk of his own car, which was abandoned on a downtown street. "I will never, ever believe it. Honestly, it's an insult."

Hours earlier in Kent County Circuit Court, Assistant Prosecutor Helen Brinkman told the jury that while Manious' family was away that weekend, he was at a gay bar, then was lured by Scarborough to a Kalamazoo Avenue SE apartment where Scarborough was staying while visiting from Tennessee.

Scarborough picked up a bat and struck Manious. He then, with Robinson's help and suggestions, drove the car containing the body downtown, Denenfeld said.

Scarborough spent the next several days dining, shopping and traveling with credit cards belonging to Manious.

Denenfeld said Scarborough had a right to use deadly force to defend himself from a sexual assault.

His wife and daughter also do not believe Manious was gay, although both the defense and the prosecution said they talked to more than one person who either had a gay relationship with Manious or was the subject of Manious' same-sex romantic interest.

Soheir Manious believes Scarborough randomly targeted her husband for robbery and murder.

Soheir Manious was exiled from the courtroom for several days after she had an outburst during autopsy photos showing the extent of her husband's injury. Judge Dennis Leiber allowed her to return for closing arguments and the verdict, when it comes.

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Verdict in Steven Scarborough case: Guilty of voluntary manslaughter of Victor Manious

GRAND RAPIDS -- A Tennessee native was found guilty today of voluntary manslaughter in the slaying of Victor Manious, a Gaines Township man whose body was found in the trunk of his own vehicle, parked on a downtown street.

Steven Scarborough, 22, was accused of luring 62-year-old Victor Manious to a friend's apartment to rob him. The prosecution said he then struck Manious in the head with a blunt force object before dragging him down stairs to Manious' car, stuffing the victim in the trunk.

Scarborough had been charged with felony murder and faced mandatory life in prison without parole. Manslaughter carries a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison.

Grand Rapids Police Detective Kristen Rogers, who interviewed Scarborough once he was apprehended, put her head in her hands.

Kent County Assistant Prosecutor Helen Brinkman said she would tell the Manious family she did her best.

"I just wish the jury would have known about his previous record and that he came to Michigan to flee the conviction," she said.

Denenfeld said the jury was aware of his previous record and obviously believed that he was a victim of an assault.

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Michigan: Murder suspect says sex assault led to attack

GRAND RAPIDS -- Accused murderer Steven Scarborough was to return to the witness stand today, trying to cement his so-called gay-panic defense.

The defendant hopes to convince a jury that a sexual assault allegedly perpetrated upon him by a 62-year-old local church leader led to Scarborough's attack on the older man.

In Kent County Circuit Court on Monday, 22-year-old Scarborough said Victor Manious came into the Kalamazoo Avenue SE apartment where Scarborough had been staying with his friend, Justin Robinson, last July.

Robinson had been introducing Scarborough to Grand Rapids via tours of the downtown bar scene.

Scarborough testified that Manious asked for Robinson, then hit the younger man in the head and knocked him out. Scarborough said he woke to find Manious in his underwear, on top of him, sexually assaulting him by performing oral sex.

The Tennessee native testified that he was so unnerved by the assault, which violated his beliefs as a Southern Baptist, that he grabbed a nearby bat and hit Manious in the head.

Scarborough said Robinson soon arrived at the apartment and saw the dying man. Robinson said they had to get rid of the body, Scarborough testified, so they carried Manious down a flight of stairs to Manious' Toyota, where they heaved him into the trunk.

In the interview, a Grand Rapids detective allegedly asked Scarborough whether the assault aroused the young man, and an FBI agent suggested to Scarborough that the nature of the alleged assault seemed consentual. Scarborough said he was freaked out by the advances of the man, hit him with a bat and dragged his body down a flight of stairs. He said he put the man in the trunk of his own Toyota and left the victim to die in the car parked on Ottawa Avenue NW.

"My intentions were not to kill him," Scarborough said. "It wasn't me that did that. That wasn't me in my right mind."

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