From the archives: Lucero's mother has her first look

This story was originally published in Newsday on February 19, 2009.

Sitting behind two of the defendants in court yesterday, Rosario Lucero eyed with disbelief the pale, slight teens charged in connection with the death of her son.

"They're so young - they're babies," said Lucero, who arrived from Ecuador Monday night to attend the court appearance in Riverhead. Nicholas Hausch and Jordan Dasch, both 17, of Medford, sat slumped between their parents on opposite sides of the courtroom. Hausch's mother held her son's arm, smoothing his shirt cuff nervously with her thumb.

Three rows back, Rosario, 59, sat alongside her daughter Isabel, 32, and her surviving son, Joselo, 34. She had arrived in court trailed by a scrum of reporters and clutching Joselo's arm.

The atmosphere was somber and quiet during the routine court appearance and no exchanges occurred between the families. Five other teens charged in the fatal attack, held without bail or unable to post it, did not appear. The case was adjourned until April 1.

Prosecutors have said the seven teens made a grim sport of harassing and battering Latino men in the Patchogue area - knocking some off bicycles, robbing others and sending still more to the hospital with injuries. On Nov. 8, prosecutors said the group surrounded and pummeled Marcelo Lucero, 37, as he walked home. Lucero unbuckled his belt and swung at his attackers, and one of the teens, Jeffrey Conroy, 17, of Medford, ended the fight by sticking a knife in the victim's chest, prosecutors said.

 Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy, who critics said initially did not condemn the attack on Lucero forcefully enough, has attempted to reach out to the Lucero family. In an e-mail, a Levy spokesman said the county executive asked Police Commissioner Richard Dormer to have a Community Outreach officer escort the Lucero family from the airport and offer Rosario Lucero a meeting with Levy. Rosario indicated that she was recovering from a recent surgery and was not feeling up to it.

 Levy said he had previously sent a letter of condolence to the family.

 At a news conference outside court, Rosario Lucero made an emotional plea for justice, saying the attackers hadn't just killed her son but had also taken away the family's source of financial and emotional support.

 "As a mother, I feel this pain of loss," she said in Spanish, her face nearly hidden by 16 microphones. "The parents of these children must be feeling a sense of loss, too, seeing their children in these circumstances. We are all human beings, and it is not right to take anyone's life."

 Afterward, Isabel Lucero described the sorrowful first trip to the United States she and her mother made starting Monday - visiting the room her brother rented in Patchogue, then the spot where he died.

 "We wanted a joyful trip, a trip where we would reunite with the brothers we hadn't seen for more than 14 years," she said. "Instead, we are in such pain."

 Staff writer Andrew Strickler contributed to this story.