Transgender Employee Of Eva Longoria's Restaurant Badly Beaten, 'Left For Dead'

An employee of Beso, Eva Longoria's Hollywood eatery, was savagely beaten Thursday night. His family is calling the attack a hate crime.

Victor Diego, 22, was leaving his job as a barista at Beso on Thursday night when his sisters say he was attacked on Hollywood Boulevard near the Metro station, CBS News reports.

His sisters think Diego, who is gay and transgender, was targeted because he was dressed in drag. “Sometimes men try to talk to him and they get humiliated in front of their friends when they realize it’s a man,” Virginia Diego told CBS. “Because he looks really good, he looks like a woman, you couldn’t tell the difference,” she said.

The victim's sister said he was jumped by a group of men who left him with two fractured ribs, a shattered cheekbone and a broken jaw.

“He was basically left for dead just because of who he is,” Virginia told CBS. "His temple was kicked in, so now they have to operate on the side of his head."

According to his sisters, the Los Angeles Police Department’s Hollywood Division is investigating the beating as a hate crime.

“We don’t want this to happen to anybody else,” said Diego’s sister, Melissa. “We just want somebody to come forward and let us know what they saw. He deserves justice,” she said. "He definitely did not deserve this."

Longoria, who opened the upscale Mexican restaurant in 2008, took to Twitter Monday to offer her support for Diego, saying, "My heart and prayers are with Victor Diego and his family."

Diego remains hospitalized at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. Although his sisters refer to him as transgender, WENN reports that he is "in the process of becoming a woman."