A 22-year-old man died today after a vicious beating last week outside a Back Bay nightclub allegedly at the hands of 12 men in matching tuxedos.
Jose Alicea suffered severe head trauma in the assault early Friday and succumbed to his injuries, according to a press release issued this afternoon by Boston police. The Hyde Park resident had been in Massachusetts General Hospital, where he had been declared brain dead but living on life support.
Alicea’s alleged attackers are are scheduled to be arraigned today in Boston Municipal Court on charges of assault and battery causing serious injury or death.
“The possibility remains that the charges could be upgraded,” said Jake Wark, spokesman for the Suffolk district attorney’s office.
The beating occurred at 2:25 a.m. on Friday outside 33 Restaurant & Lounge, a nightclub on Stanhope Street on the border of Back Bay and the South End. According to police, the aggressors were 12 men in matching red tuxedos who were arrested inside a limousine parked outside the club.
The 12 men had come from the funeral in Lynn of a friend killed in a motorcycle crash, according to attorney Francisco Napolitano, who is representing one of the accused, Anthony Villaobos, 21, of Revere. The 12 men attended the funeral, paid their respects to the family, and then ended up at the nightclub, Napolitano said.
The funeral appears to have been that of Enrique Fortuna, 22, who was killed Aug. 14 while traveling at a high rate of speed on a Honda motorcycle. According to the Lynn Item, Fortuna collided with a white Toyota on Lynnfield Street at 11:50 p.m. that Friday night. Fortuna’s funeral was last Thursday at 9 a.m. at St. Joseph Church on Union Street, according to an obituary in the Lynn Item.
