Jealous Man Fatally Stabbed Boyfriend in Brooklyn
Father of three killed on Black Friday; suspect held at Rikers
BY MATT TRACY
A man’s boyfriend stabbed him to
death in a fi t of jealous rage in Bay
Ridge the day after Thanksgiving
— all because his new girlfriend
bought him a brand new coat, according to the
New York Daily News.
Vito Bauza, 56, turned himself in on November
27 and was charged with murder and criminal
possession of a weapon after allegedly killing
his boyfriend, 40-year-old Ernest Diaz, who
had three children with a longtime girlfriend.
A law enforcement source confi rmed that
Bauza admitted to authorities that he had a relationship
with Diaz and said the pair argued over
money prior to the fatal stabbing. But the issue
over Diaz’s coat was apparently the fi nal straw
that prompted Bauza to lash out at the victim.
Bauza became enraged when Diaz — who
was wearing the coat — showed up at his home
at 303 99th Street in Bay Ridge. Upon arriving,
Diaz went into Bauza’s bathroom to shower —
and when he fi nished up, Bauza subsequently
stabbed him, according to the Daily News.
Bleeding badly, Diaz tried to escape but Bauza
punched him in the head in the lobby, per video
surveillance footage. Bauza then stabbed Diaz
multiple times, leaving him unconscious and
unresponsive when authorities arrived.
Diaz, who worked a security guard and
bouncer, was rushed to Lutheran Hospital,
where he was pronounced dead.
➤ GOTTFRIED, from p.6
cessfully had him civilly committed in 2014. He
remains incarcerated in the state’s Central New
York Forensic Facility in Marcy.
Gottfried, who authored the 1988 state law
that keeps HIV test results confi dential, defended
that law, saying that confi dentially made it
possible for Williams and others to get tested
without fear of public disclosure. Citing the Williams
case, other politicians wanted to overturn
that law.
“Fights about that legislation were particularly
fi erce in the ’90s when there were efforts
to have compulsory testing and compulsory
disclosure of test results,” he said. “Those were
some bitter battles.”
He was also willing to disagree with the
leadership in the LGBTQ community when he
thought that the community’s grassroots were
correct. Gottfried was an early advocate for allowing
same-sex couples to marry, but some
LGBTQ advocates wanted to avoid raising marriage
The scene at 303 99th Street in Brooklyn after 40-year-oldErnest Diaz was fatally stabbed.
The gruesome crime scene was drenched
with blood, AMNY reported. The building’s lobby
had blood on the doors, the nearby sidewalk,
and windows.
Diaz was trying to end his relationship with
Bauza so he could dedicate his time to his new
or adding gender identity to the state’s
anti-discrimination law out of fear it would diminish
support for adding sexual orientation to
that law.
“At the time we were getting ready to introduce
the marriage bill, as I recall, ESPA, or a
lot of its leadership, were opposed to introducing
both the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination
Act and the marriage bill because they
felt it would upset the apple cart of getting the
Sexual Orientation Non-Discrimination Act
enacted,” Gottfried said.
The argument that allowing same-sex couples
to marry was wrong and would somehow
harm marriage was “profoundly degrading”
and “as discriminatory as could be,” Gottfried
said.
“I don’t ordinarily feel angry about an issue,
but I often felt really angry about straight opposition
to marriage,” he said. “For about two
or three years, advocates for marriage were
imploring me to put the bill in and I hesitated
doing it partly because so much of the leadership
LLOYD MITCHELL
CRIME
girlfriend, according to the Daily News. Diaz and
Bauza maintained a relationship for two decades
and Bauza was a godfather to Diaz’s kids. He
was also said to have helped Diaz with his bills.
Bauza is being held without bail at Rikers
Island.
of the gay community was against doing
it. It ate away at me to the point where in ’02 I
decided I can’t hold off doing this anymore.”
After waiting 31 years to add sexual orientation
to the state’s anti-discrimination law and
17 years after that to add gender identity, Gottfried
was taken aback when marriage became
law in New York in 2011.
“I think the speed of the enactment of marriage
really surprised me and a lot of other
people,” he said. “That’s partly because I had
seen the gay rights bill take almost 30 years to
become law.”
As evidenced by the laws that he supported
that eventually became law, his advocacy has
changed minds in the LGBTQ community and
in the State Legislature.
“As a straight observer, there has been a dramatic
change in most public attitudes towards
the LGBTQ communities,” Gottfried said. “Obviously
there is still quite a way to go. My sense,
as a straight observer, is things are dramatically
different for the better.”
GayCityNews.com | December 30, 2021 - January 12, 2022 7
/GayCityNews.com
