Former Conn. Wendy’s manager has charges upped to hate crime

DANIELSON — Prosecutors have upgraded the charges against a former Wendy’s manager who is accused of hurling a racial epithet at Black basketball coaches from Woodstock Academy this month.

During Brett White’s arraignment Tuesday in state Superior Court in Danielson, Maria Do Ceu Da Silva, deputy assistant state’s attorney, said the state is adding a charge of third-degree intimidation based on bigotry or bias, a Class E felony, to the original charge of second-degree breach of peace, which is a Class B misdemeanor.

White also is being charged with another misdemeanor, deprivation of a person’s equal rights and privileges, according to his court file.

He is not to have contact with the victims in the case and is to stay away from Woodstock Academy, Judge Kevin M. Shay said. The victims, Woodstock Academy head coach Donte Adams and Denzel Washington, assistant coach and director of equity and inclusion at the school, attended the brief arraignment, but left immediately afterward.

White, 22, of Canterbury, has been free on $10,000 bail after being arrested for the Feb. 9 incident at Wendy’s in Plainfield.

“It’s my opinion that this is not a racial situation, even though the state is going to increase the charges,” White’s lawyer, Richard Rothstein, said after Tuesday’s court hearing.

Still, White acknowledged that he used a racial term and apologized.

“I have anger issues,” he said afterward in an interview with Hearst Connecticut Media Group. “I do regret it.”

He used the word at the end of a tense back-and-forth with the coaches over the dining area being shut down early so professional cleaners could clean three hoods in the kitchen, White later told reporters. The intent was to allow patrons to order at the drive-thru, but someone backed into another car there, so the dining area had to be briefly reopened to take orders, he said.

When the minor accident scene was being cleared, the staff tried to shut down the dining room again, White said. But some members of the basketball team came in after getting off a bus.

“What we were saying to everybody was ‘We’re sorry for the inconvenience. We can’t serve you inside, but we can take your order,’ ” he said. He said it was another employee who said something like, “We can’t do this right now,” but the statement was mistakenly attributed to him.

White said the initial group of basketball players who came in had turned around and left when the coaches walked in to find out what was going on. Things got heated, he said. “We both got mad, I said something I shouldn’t have said. I’m am regretful for it. Like I said, it’s something that’s not supposed to be said in this day and age, but again. ... No matter what, I’m still a bad guy for it,” White said. He used a foul synonym for “jerk” to describe himself, saying, “I’m an [expletive].”

In a statement released a few days after the incident, the owners of the restaurant condemned his language and said White “is no longer employed with the company.”

The incident happened about 10 p.m. Feb. 9, when Woodstock Academy’s boys basketball team arrived after a game. Some players left the bus and ran into the restaurant, but the manager started cursing at them, claiming they were closed, police said. The Wendy’s website states the restaurant is open until midnight.

According to Chris Sanford, Woodstock Academy’s head of school, the players turned to leave as the coaches were coming in. White yelled again, and this time “he started throwing in the N-word.”

“The kids run into the store and the manager starts going after them, not with racial terms yet, but we’re “fword closed … not dealing with f-word buses tonight,’” Sandford said. “The kids were like, OK, this is weird. We usually stop here. As they started to go out, the coaches came in behind them.”

“The coaches initially thought the kids had done something wrong. They were like, ‘What happened? There are people here. You’re closed?’ That’s when he yelled at them again and this time he started throwing in the N-word. Out of the blue. That’s the part that’s most egregious.”