Man charged with assaulting gay men in D.C.’s Meridian Hill Park acquitted
A U.S. District Court jury in D.C. on Sept. 27 found a Virginia man not guilty of multiple charges that he assaulted five men, four of whom he believed to be gay, with pepper spray between 2018 and 2021 in D.C.’s Meridian Hill Park, which is also known as Malcolm X Park.
The verdict came a little over two years after a federal grand jury handed down an indictment charging Michael Thomas Pruden, 50, with five counts of assault on federal park land, one count of impersonating a federal officer, and a hate crime designation alleging that he assaulted four of the men because of their perceived sexual orientation.
The indictment states, and witnesses at the trial testified, that Meridian Hill Park is well known as a “cruising” place where men seek out other men for consenting sexual encounters during nighttime hours. “Michael Thomas Pruden frequented Meridian Hill Park after nightfall on multiple occasions, including those described below, assaulted men in Meridian Hill Park by approaching them with a flashlight, giving them police-style commands, and spaying them with a chemical irritant,” the indictment states.
The indictment was handed down by a federal grand jury on June 29, 2022. Court records show that Pruden was arrested two weeks later on July 14, 2022, in Norfolk, Va., where he was living at that time.
