Source: Grand Rapids Press
GRAND RAPIDS -- While a jury considers the fate of Steven Scarborough who admits to killing Victor Manious, members of the dead man's family turned to the local press to dispute pictures painted of Manious by both prosecutors and defenders in the case.
While lawyers on the two sides of the case described vastly different scenarios during the trial, both had a common theme -- that Manious, a father of four and lay leader of the local Coptic Church, was arguably gay.
Family members insist that can't be true of the man they knew.
Assistant Prosecutor Helen Brinkman told the jury that while Manious' family was away, he was at a gay bar, then was lured by Scarborough to an apartment where Scarborough was staying while visiting from Tennessee.
She said Scarborough targeted Manious because he looked foreign, rich and gay -- and that gay men, hoping to keep their lifestyle a secret, are less likely to tell police they have been robbed.
On the other side, defense attorney Paul Denenfeld told jurors in his closing argument that Manious walked into the apartment asking for Scarborough's Grand Rapids host, Justin Robinson.
Manious knocked out Scarborough, 22, and, when the younger man awoke, he found Manious performing oral sex on him, Denenfeld said.
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.
"I can't imagine something like this was even said," Manious's daughter told the Grand Rapids Press. "I will never, ever believe it. Honestly, it's an insult."
"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.
Yustina Manious and her mother were at a church conference last July when her father was killed, stuffed into the trunk of his own car, which was abandoned on a downtown street.
Both insisted that Manious was not 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.
"He doesn't like lying," said Soheir Manious of her late husband. "He's telling his daughter, 'Tell the truth, it doesn't matter the outcome, just tell the truth.'"
Manious' brother-in-law, John Fahd, told the Press that Victor Manious was a servant of God, a lay leader in the Coptic Christian Church who came to Grand Rapids from Egypt three decades ago working for S. Abraham & Sons and spending the rest of his time at the church, puttering around his Gaines Township home or spending time with his family.
Fahd said Manious would help newly arrived families get settled in Grand Rapids, helping them find jobs and even providing them with food.
He argued to the newspaper the traditions of his culture and the tenets of his church would "not allow" Victor Manious to be homosexual.
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.
Full article: Family rejects talk of victim's secret gay lifestyle in Scarborough murder trial | Grand Rapids Press