Metro

Music school administrator on life-support after brutal beatdown

A beloved music school administrator was brutally beaten by a stick-wielding thug while out for his usual midnight stroll, authorities said today.

Lou Rispoli, 62, a longtime Sunnyside resident who worked in the West Village, is on life support in hospice care after an unknown brute pummeled him early Saturday.

Friends said Rispoli was an insomniac who liked to take long strolls at night, and that he left his home around midnight.

A witness spotted two men talking to him about 2:15 a.m. along 43rd Avenue, near 42nd Street—and then one struck him in the head, authorities said. A third man have acted as a lookout near the car.

EMS rushed him to Elmhurst Hospital in very critical condition, and he is not expected to survive.

Rispoli is well known in the Sunnyside community, and he also worked at the Greenwich House Music School in Greenwich Village.

Friend Marc Horn said that he and his husband opened their home to the neighborhood and city.

“He was a big-hearted, generous man. That such a man should be struck down so violently is incomprehensible to us,” said Horn. “And as he lays dying surrounded by those who love him, we find ourselves speechless with grief and disbelief.”

Rispoli married his husband the first day after same sex marriage law went into effect, according to local media reports. The two have been together over thirty years.

Police said it was not immediately clear what sparked the violence, and the assault had not been identified as a bias crime. Nothing was taken from Rispoli after the beating.

“The main reason we’re here is to make sure that the vicious and cowardly criminals who sought to take Lou’s life are caught, arrested, and prosecuted, and brought to justice,” said local Council Member Jimmy Van Bramer, a friend of Rispoli. “Is is difficult enough to know that we have lost Lou. It is impossible to believe that the people who did this would get away with it.”

“It’s just senseless,” said friend Eric Lehman, 58.

Cops are seeking the public’s help in nabbing the assailants. Anyone with information should call Crime Stoppers at 1-800-577-TIPS.