By Neal Putnam
News and updates about crime, public safety and courts for greater San Diego LGBTQ+ community.
GRINDR ASSAULTS
A March 21 preliminary hearing has been set for a man who is charged with sexually assaulting four men in his Escondido apartment after meeting them on the Grindr app.
The hearing in Vista Superior Court may go several days involving Tobias Tremayne Bartee II, 28, who is charged with forcible oral copulation, forcible sodomy, kidnapping, robbery, and assault.
The incidents took place in 2023 and Escondido Police said four men told them they were lured to an apartment after chatting with a man on the Grindr app and agreed to meet.
The photo of the person they were meeting was of a white male, but Bartee is black. All four told police that when they knocked, Bartee told them he was a roommate of the man they were seeking.
Two victims said they were assaulted at gunpoint and the two others were also overcome. The men told police they were forcibly restrained and sexually assaulted.
Bartee has pleaded not guilty and remains in the South Bay Detention Facility without bail.
FOOD TRUCK ARSON CASE
A gay man who represented himself in the arson of his food truck was convicted by a jury on Feb. 21, of arson and grand theft, after he had accepted $100,000 in donations from the GoFundMe website in the wake of the fire.
Avonte Ahikim Hartsfield, 27, faces a maximum of up to seven years and four months in state prison, said Deputy District Attorney Judy Taschner.
The jury deliberated about 7 1/2 hours over two days before also convicting Hartsfield of two counts of presenting false information about an insurance claim after the Oct. 3, 2021, fire that occurred at 1 a.m. in a Kearny Mesa parking lot.
Hartsfield was arrested Jan. 16 on another case in another jurisdiction and he remains in the central jail without bail. He may be ordered to pay back some of the people who gave donations to the GoFundMe effort.
San Diego Superior Court Judge Kimberlee Lagotta set sentencing for March 20. Hartsfield fired his trial lawyer in June 2022, after a judge allowed him to represent himself.
Hartsfield had long argued that he was a target of a hate crime “because I’m black and because I’m gay,” but he had difficulty presenting evidence of that, other than his own statements.
However, Hartsfield was heard on a police tape recording admitting to accidentally starting the fire with a rice cooker in his vegan Rollin Roots truck. He said he saw a spark while trying to keep some rice warm.
“I panicked. I didn’t think of putting it out,” Hartsfield was heard saying on the tape, which was played to jurors.
“I’m always super afraid of being electrocuted,” he also said on the tape. “The truck fire was still accidental and I still wanted it investigated.”
The abrupt shift from calling it a hate crime to admitting he started the fire accidentally was something Hartsfield had difficulty explaining to Detective John Clayton, who eventually told him on tape he believed Hartsfield was lying to him.
Clayton asked Hartsfield where his rice cooker was located in his food truck. Hartsfield replied it was on the floor.
The detective said the fire investigator had said a fire could not start if the rice cooker was on the floor and the fire appeared to be set deliberately.
“Well, that’s not the case,” Hartsfield can be heard replying on the tape.
“I know for a fact that you started the fire. Do you want to keep going with the lie?” Detective Clayton said on tape. “There was never any indication that anyone else was involved other than you.”
Clayton testified that Hartsfield received approximately $125,000 in donations from the public and a $20,000 check from Sycuan tribal officials. The GoFundMe organization refunded $25,000 to some donors, said Christopher Bayless, a District Attorney investigator.
To read more background on this story, see Vol. 4, Issue 19, or online at bit.ly/3Vghhsf.
PASTOR AT POINT LOMA NAZARENE CAN APPEAL HIS FIRING
Six General Superintendents of the Church of the Nazarene have overruled the denial of an appeal by former Nazarene pastor Dee Kelley who lost his preacher’s license in a church trial in August 2023, over an essay that was supportive of LGBTQ marriage.
The brief February ruling only allows Kelley to continue appealing his denial of his license. Their ruling is in response to the denomination’s District Superintendent Tom Taylor, who sent out letters saying Kelley’s farewell message to First Church of the Nazarene voided any appeal and was improper. Taylor stated that Kelley had “preached” at his final service to the congregation that he has led for nearly two decades.
“We conclude justice is best served by allowing the appeal to move forward,” wrote the superintendents, who added there was “ambiguity in the [Nazarene] Manual’s definition of ministerial activity.”
“The objection [by Taylor] is, therefore, overruled,” the order stated.
It was Taylor who started the controversy by bringing charges against Kelley after Kelley had written a three page essay in the book, “Why the Church of the Nazarene Should Be Fully LGBTQ+ Affirming,” which was published in April, 2023.
Kelley, who was pastor at First Church for 17 years, asked for dialogue in the essay to discuss same-sex relationships and marriage, and is an ally of the LGBTQ community.
To read the complete background on this story, see Vol. 4, Issue 23, or online at bit.ly/47rfMK1.
–Neal Putnam is a local crime reporter. You can reach him at [email protected].
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