Eleven months after he turned himself in for intentionally vandalizing an LGBTQ pride mural at a Delray Beach intersection, Clearwater man Dylan Brewer pleaded guilty to the crime.
He also apologized for his actions while lamenting the punishment he’ll face, which he said “obviously sucks.”
“I’m remorseful for putting everyone through this,” Brewer told Judge Daliah Weiss.
“I understand the harm that I caused in Delray Beach and the entire Palm Beach County, to the group that has worked hard on bringing rights to the county, and me going over (the mural) multiple times has brought a lot of setback, if you would say, towards their community, and I’m deeply sorry for any harm that I’ve caused.”
Brewer, who turns 20 on Jan. 31, turned himself in last February after police said he did burnouts — revving a vehicle’s engine while pressing down on the brake, causing the tires to spin and mark up the pavement — in a Dodge Ram pickup truck adorned with pro-Donald Trump flags.
The multicolored mural, located at the intersection of Northeast 1st Street and Northeast 2nd Avenue, had been previously defaced during Pride Month in June 2021 by another man in a truck who was participating in a “President Trump Birthday Rally.”
That man, Alexander Jerich of Lantana, initially faced a third-degree felony. He pleaded guilty, was sentenced to 100 hours of community service, two years of probation and was ordered to undergo mental health treatment. He was also ordered to write a 25-page essay on the Pulse nightclub massacre.
A Palm Beach County Judge later canceled Jerich’s probation.
The South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported that Brewer’s plea Wednesday dropped the charge he faced from a third-degree felony to a misdemeanor count of criminal mischief under $1,000 and one count of reckless driving with injury to property.
Unlike Jerich’s case, Brewer’s conviction will remain on his record. He must also pay Delray Beach nearly $5,700 in reparations, complete a year of probation, work 75 hours of community service and undergo an eight-hour anger management course.
Weiss also revoked Brewer’s license for 12 months.
Retired Judge Rand Hoch, founder of the Palm Beach County Human Rights Council (PBHRC) co-paid for the street mural with the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, blasted Brewer’s sentencing as a “sweetheart plea deal.”
“He committed a crime against our community, the LGBTQ community,” he said, according to the Sun-Sentinel. “He went through the intersection … three times in a retrofitted vehicle to cause damage to our community, and … a misdemeanor for doing that damage to our community would be a disgrace.”
Assistant State Attorney Richard Clausi disagreed with Hoch’s characterization of Brewer’s punishment. He noted that the conviction will remain on Brewer’s record, and that he accepted fault and agreed to pay for the mural’s repair.
In a statement the PBHRC released after Brewer’s sentencing, Hoch highlighted the discrepancy between the misdemeanor Brewer pleaded down to that covered less than $1,000 and the defendant’s agreement to pay nearly $6,000 for the actual damage he caused.
“With all of the video and documentary evidence, any first-year lawyer could have convinced a judge and jury that the damages Brewer caused exceed $1,000,” Hoch said. “I cannot fathom why Dave Aronberg cut such a sweet deal for Brewer. It just makes no sense legally.”
Aronberg left office Tuesday after 12 years as Palm Beach County State Attorney. He was succeeded by Alexcia Cox, who made history as the first woman and Black person to hold the job.
2 comments
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January 9, 2025 at 4:05 am
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Concerned citizen
January 9, 2025 at 5:39 am
The city puts a symbol of diversity in its own dirty street, connecting filthy gutters from one side to the other with said symbol and all manner of traffic crosses over this symbol but judge decides to punish a young man for getting it dirty?
http://www.givesendgo.com/Dylanbrewer?openShareModal=true
These are not the smartest officials but even dumber are the general public that supports this behavior. To be clear, if the USA flag was painted in a dirty public street intersection smart people would raise hell for such bad behavior. You expect us to believe not one member of the alphabet community is scratching thier heads right now? Whose dumb idea was it to put our symbol in a filthy crosswalk for everyone to trample? Who made that dumb idea a reality? And why punish people for defacing that which is being disrespected by the very idiots who put it in a dirty street?