Satan Worshiper Shunned
High priest denies knowing the pummeled devotee, who suggests that the church is just attempting to avoid negative press coverage
Newsday Suffolk Edition 13 January 2005
By Luis Perez Staff Writer
First he got beat up and called a devil worshiper. Now the Church of Satan, which Daniel Romano says he has been a member of for two years, denies knowing him.
“They deny knowing me because they don’t want the press,” said Romano, who was pounded Sunday with an ice scraper and metal pipe near his Maspeth home. Romano, 20, who spent part of yesterday in a bagel store to dodge a TV news crew, said that as a card-carrying member of the Church of Satan he avidly reads the “Satanic Bible” and attends secret meetings.
But the high priest of the Manhattan-based church wondered just who Romano is. “I don’t know the guy,” said High Priest Peter Gilmore, the church’s leader. “I can’t vouch if he is a Satanist or not. He might be somebody that’s out for publicity. Anybody who says he’s a Satanist, and is not a member, we don’t support,” Gilmore added. “How can we? There’s a lot of crazy people out there.”
Romano, who has lived on Caldwell Avenue in Maspeth with his mother since he was 12, said the attack was the first time he was beaten for his beliefs. But it was not the first time that his alleged attackers, Frank Scarpinito, 19, and Paul Rotondi, 18, had harassed him. On Sunday, they allegedly pulled over in a blue sedan as Romano, draped in a black trenchcoat and wearing an inverted cross around his neck, was walking on 72nd Street.
“Yo, Satanist!” Romano said they yelled. The two were fueled by rumors that Romano’s beliefs require him to sacrifice humans, prosecutors said. Romano suffered a bleeding scalp and bruises on his hands and left thigh in the attack. Scarpinito and Rotondi were charged with criminal possession of a weapon, aggravated harassment and assault under the state’s hate crimes law. Both posted $5,000 bail.
Romano denied his religion is associated with violence, sacrifices or “devil worshipping.”
On that note only, Gilmore agrees.
But Romano also said he is not upset that the church has shunned him. He suggested the church is seeking to avoid negative media coverage. “I’d rather them keep their mouth shut about everything until the courtroom,” he said, adding that church members are prepared to testify that Satanism is a valid religion. Of his attackers, he said: “These kids deserve justice.”
