The white man charged with a hate crime for beating a black man with a baseball bat last year in Howard Beach was “immature” and “a dope” but the incident was not racially motivated, his attorney said yesterday in closing arguments.

“This is not about race,” a defense attorney, Albert Gaudelli, said. His client, 20-year-old Nicholas Minucci, was “a scapegoat because he’s a dope.” Mr. Minucci turned to smile at his family after the comment in state Supreme Court.

Mr. Minucci has been charged with assault and robbery as a hate crime in connection with the June 29 incident. Authorities say Mr. Minucci beat Glenn Moore, 23, with a bat because of his race and used racial epithets during the encounter.

“Race fueled this case in a substantial way, race heated this case up,” an assistant district attorney, Michelle Goldstein, said. “These crimes are in fact hate crimes.”

The defense has said Mr. Minucci was using reasonable force against someone attempting to commit a crime. Mr. Moore has admitted that he and two friends had come to the area with the intention of stealing a car, but they hadn’t taken anything when they crossed paths with Mr. Minucci and his companions.

The attack took place in the same neighborhood as an infamous racial assault in 1986, when a black man was struck by a car while trying to escape a group of attackers.

Mr. Gaudelli said prosecutors were “playing the Howard Beach race card.” During the defense case, he produced witnesses who testified about the “n-word,” saying its meaning had changed and that it was common among hip-hop listeners.

“You don’t like that word, I don’t like that word, no one over 30 likes it but it’s a fact that people under 30 use the word differently,” Mr. Gaudelli told jurors. “Ignore this word, it’s merely another descriptive word.”