This is an old case but a good one to start this educational thread.
Jessy Joe Roten 19.................LIFE IN PRISON!
(how ironic? he's in there right with the blacks and mexicans)
Girl's neo-Nazi killer convicted
The 19-year-old, who also injured the child's sister, could be sent to prison for life on the murder and hate crime charges.
Aleesha Mance, 8, hurt in the shooting, and her mother, Yahaira Carattini, front, are hugged by victim advocate Ramona Merritt.
By WILLIAM R. LEVESQUE
© St. Petersburg Times, published October 27, 2000
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LARGO -- Eight-year-old Aleesha Mance knew him as the "bad guy," the man from her nightmares. Now, he stood just 10 feet away.
Aleesha looked up into her mother's face, unsure why she was crying.
Jessy Joe Roten shot into the home of an interracial couple last year.
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The "bad guy," Jessy Joe Roten, a self-avowed skinhead who killed Aleesha's twin sister with a shot from an assault rifle, the neo-Nazi who nearly killed Aleesha with the same shot, stood impassively, staring straight ahead.
After deliberating eight hours, a jury Thursday found the 19-year-old Roten guilty of second-degree murder and two counts of attempted second-degree murder in the April 1999 shooting that killed 6-year-old Ashley Mance.
Jurors, rejecting a call by defense attorneys to convict him of the lesser crime of manslaughter, also decided that Roten's act was a hate crime. That enhances the potential penalty he faces when sentenced next month.
"Aleesha really knows what's going on," said her father, Terry Mance. "As far as she knows, the bad guy has been sent away never to harm her again."
Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Judge Nancy Ley set sentencing for Nov. 30. Roten faces a maximum term of life in prison without parole.
As the verdict was announced, Roten displayed no emotion. He nodded politely at the judge as she set his sentencing and quickly wiped the black ink from his fingers after bailiffs fingerprinted him.
His attorney, Buck Blankner, put a consoling arm on his shoulder and whispered in his ear.
Ashley and Aleesha's father found himself surrounded by TV cameras after the verdict, his children looking on in astonishment at the display.
He said the chest wound that nearly killed Aleesha has healed, but the emotional scars linger.
"She's seen a lot more than most grownups like us can deal with," said her father, who wore a T-shirt with a picture of his four children, including Ashley, that said, "Together throughout eternity."
Yahaira Carattini, mother of the children, said of Roten:
"I don't hate him. This will open a lot of people's minds to think before they do things. . . . Everybody's the same inside, whatever their color."
Roten's mother, Katherine Wooley, sat behind him through most of the trial but wasn't present when the verdict was read.
The shooting occurred on April 3, 1999. Roten, who had gotten into an argument with his girlfriend and into a fight with a friend, had returned to his home north of St. Petersburg.
He grabbed his SKS Chinese assault rifle and dozens of armor-piercing bullets.
At 2:30 a.m., he fired a volley of shots into the air as he stood near the Mance home. Two hours later, he returned to the alley behind his parents' house, walked past 10 other homes and fired a single shot into Mance's home.
Prosecutors Bill Loughery and Lydia Wardell say Roten knew that Mance was a black man living with his then-fiancee, Tracy Townsend, who is white. The couple have since married.
Roten, prosecutors say, particularly abhorred interracial unions.
The single shot traveling at twice the speed of sound hit Aleesha, drove through her chest and exited, then nicked the ear of her half sister, 4-year-old Jailene Jones. The bullet then struck and killed Ashley.
Loughery told jurors: "Mr. Roten's whole world was being a skinhead. That was the focus of his life. Not just a skinhead, but a neo-Nazi, white supremacist.
The bullet was Roten's "calling card," Loughery said.
Defense lawyers say Roten fired the shot by accident as he tried to fold the stock of his gun. The rifle discharged as he did so, they said.
Blankner, Roten's lead counsel, acknowledged Roten was a skinhead, but he told jurors that Roten did not fire the shot to send a message to an interracial couple.
"He did a reckless, dangerous, bone-headed, stupid, stupid thing," Blankner said during closing arguments. "And he's going to pay for it."
Roten, he said, was simply a love-struck 17-year-old angry at his girlfriend. He noted that Roten left 24 rounds in the assault rifle's magazine. If Roten had targeted Mance, Blankner said, he would have emptied the gun at the house.
But Loughery said Roten was old enough to know one thing.
Said the prosecutor, "He was old enough to know better."
Racist Skinheads/Neo Nazi's that donate their souls.
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Re: Racist Skinheads/Neo Nazi's that donate their souls.
Skinhead crews not "gangs" are for the most part just like-minded individuals that come together for a sense of unity. Sure sometimes a few bad apples commit thoughtless acts and it reflects on us all. But you can't condemn every skinhead, or skinhead crew for someones else's actions. If you want to see gangs look at the cripps or the bloods, they don't come together with a goal to advance their race, help to educate the community, attend rallys, etc. They are in it for purely selfish reasons to deal drugs and get the all mighty bling-bling. The real problem with Skinheads is the perception that many have. Many you and others call Skins are not actually Skinheads. Yet we all get grouped together. Boots, braces and a close crop does not make you a Skin. That coupled with honor,beliefs and actions is closer to the truth. Many parade around looking like Skinheads but are not. True racial Skinheads (and there really are no other types the rest are just fashion skins) are your brothers and sisters in arms. We are no better or worse than any other type of group in this cause. We are all in this together.
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Re: Racist Skinheads/Neo Nazi's that donate their souls.
This is another old case but I feel it's a good one to remind young white supremist what can happned if you get caught up.
SKINHEAD CONVICTED ON ANTI GANG LAW.
Man receives life for hate attacks: The Fair Oaks resident committed two racially motivated assaults
Sacramento Bee/September 22, 2001
By Ramon Coronado
Described as a scapegoat by his lawyer and a racist monster by his victims, Joshua Mark Gilmore was sentenced Friday to two life terms in prison for two racially motivated attempted murders.
The 25-year-old Fair Oaks man, found guilty in July of the crimes by a Sacramento Superior Court jury, also was convicted under a special enhancement used for street gangs to invoke tougher sentences. In this case, the jury said his hate crimes were committed to benefit the local chapter of the World Church of the Creator, a white supremacist organization. He will be 40 before he is eligible for parole.
Gilmore showed a range of emotion as a half-dozen people spoke during the two-hour sentencing hearing. He cried when his mother talked about her son not being able to hold his 11-month-old daughter.
He sneered when his prosecutor described his "ignorant belief in superiority." He chuckled when the judge proclaimed his two life sentences, knowing he can only serve one term.
Gilmore, whose arms, chest and back are covered with neo-Nazi tattoos, was convicted of the July 3, 1997, beating of Jeff Almon, 16. Almon was mistaken for a member of an anti-racist skinhead group and severely beaten. The Del Campo High School student was in a coma for five of the 15 days he was hospitalized.
Gilmore also was convicted for the mob attack of Andrew Harris, 22, at a now-defunct Citrus Heights cafe four months after the Almon assault. Ten men swarmed Harris after also mistaking him for a rival skinhead member. Harris, who was stabbed 20 times, lost the use of his left lung. Although Gilmore had accomplices, some agreed to testify against him in state court.
Richard Molinare and James Merrill, both 23, were charged in federal court with firebombing a Fair Oaks apartment building. Merrill received 51 months in federal prison and Molinare received an eight-year sentence. Molinare, who admitted throwing most of the blows in the Almon beating, is scheduled to be sentenced Friday in state court to nine years for his role in that case.
"It is wrong to put my client in prison for the rest of his life when others who had the same involvement will be out in a few years," Gilmore's lawyer, Danny Williams, told the judge.
Judge Ronald B. Robie said he had nothing to do with the plea deals, but said he was struck by the age of Gilmore and his friends. "They were all kids. They met each other in high school," Robie said. "It was in high school that the seeds were sown for this tragedy."
In a letter to the judge, Almon wrote that his physical injuries have healed, but he still copes with psychological wounds. "Commonplace for me since my assault have been nightmares, paranoia, self-doubt, and trouble connecting with friends," he wrote.
His mother, Marlene Gerrard, said, sobbing, "Many days I drove home from work praying I wouldn't find him a victim of suicide." Gilmore's mother also cried as she pleaded for her son. "This is the land of second chances. My son deserves that opportunity," Robin Gilmore said.
Others talked about how Gilmore was a victim of associating with the wrong crowd. Williams said his client was wrongly suspected for hate crimes in Sacramento three years ago and is now a scapegoat for the terrorist attacks in New York and outside Washington, D.C., a week ago.
"Society wanted a scapegoat for the burning of the synagogue bombings back then and society today wants a scapegoat for what happened last week," he said.
Deputy District Attorney Scott Divine read from a white supremacist book found in Gilmore's home and said Gilmore "marketed himself as a billboard for hate," noting his tattoos.
Gilmore remained silent during sentencing, but he did write a letter read by his attorney. "The only thing fair about life is that life is unfair to everybody," Gilmore wrote.
SKINHEAD CONVICTED ON ANTI GANG LAW.
Man receives life for hate attacks: The Fair Oaks resident committed two racially motivated assaults
Sacramento Bee/September 22, 2001
By Ramon Coronado
Described as a scapegoat by his lawyer and a racist monster by his victims, Joshua Mark Gilmore was sentenced Friday to two life terms in prison for two racially motivated attempted murders.
The 25-year-old Fair Oaks man, found guilty in July of the crimes by a Sacramento Superior Court jury, also was convicted under a special enhancement used for street gangs to invoke tougher sentences. In this case, the jury said his hate crimes were committed to benefit the local chapter of the World Church of the Creator, a white supremacist organization. He will be 40 before he is eligible for parole.
Gilmore showed a range of emotion as a half-dozen people spoke during the two-hour sentencing hearing. He cried when his mother talked about her son not being able to hold his 11-month-old daughter.
He sneered when his prosecutor described his "ignorant belief in superiority." He chuckled when the judge proclaimed his two life sentences, knowing he can only serve one term.
Gilmore, whose arms, chest and back are covered with neo-Nazi tattoos, was convicted of the July 3, 1997, beating of Jeff Almon, 16. Almon was mistaken for a member of an anti-racist skinhead group and severely beaten. The Del Campo High School student was in a coma for five of the 15 days he was hospitalized.
Gilmore also was convicted for the mob attack of Andrew Harris, 22, at a now-defunct Citrus Heights cafe four months after the Almon assault. Ten men swarmed Harris after also mistaking him for a rival skinhead member. Harris, who was stabbed 20 times, lost the use of his left lung. Although Gilmore had accomplices, some agreed to testify against him in state court.
Richard Molinare and James Merrill, both 23, were charged in federal court with firebombing a Fair Oaks apartment building. Merrill received 51 months in federal prison and Molinare received an eight-year sentence. Molinare, who admitted throwing most of the blows in the Almon beating, is scheduled to be sentenced Friday in state court to nine years for his role in that case.
"It is wrong to put my client in prison for the rest of his life when others who had the same involvement will be out in a few years," Gilmore's lawyer, Danny Williams, told the judge.
Judge Ronald B. Robie said he had nothing to do with the plea deals, but said he was struck by the age of Gilmore and his friends. "They were all kids. They met each other in high school," Robie said. "It was in high school that the seeds were sown for this tragedy."
In a letter to the judge, Almon wrote that his physical injuries have healed, but he still copes with psychological wounds. "Commonplace for me since my assault have been nightmares, paranoia, self-doubt, and trouble connecting with friends," he wrote.
His mother, Marlene Gerrard, said, sobbing, "Many days I drove home from work praying I wouldn't find him a victim of suicide." Gilmore's mother also cried as she pleaded for her son. "This is the land of second chances. My son deserves that opportunity," Robin Gilmore said.
Others talked about how Gilmore was a victim of associating with the wrong crowd. Williams said his client was wrongly suspected for hate crimes in Sacramento three years ago and is now a scapegoat for the terrorist attacks in New York and outside Washington, D.C., a week ago.
"Society wanted a scapegoat for the burning of the synagogue bombings back then and society today wants a scapegoat for what happened last week," he said.
Deputy District Attorney Scott Divine read from a white supremacist book found in Gilmore's home and said Gilmore "marketed himself as a billboard for hate," noting his tattoos.
Gilmore remained silent during sentencing, but he did write a letter read by his attorney. "The only thing fair about life is that life is unfair to everybody," Gilmore wrote.
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Common Sense
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Re: Racist Skinheads/Neo Nazi's that donate their souls.
My commnent is on the White Pride/White Nationalist thread.Tron wrote:If you want to see gangs look at the cripps or the bloods, they don't come together with a goal to advance their race, help to educate the community, attend rallys, etc. They are in it for purely selfish reasons to deal drugs and get the all mighty bling-bling. The real problem with Skinheads is the perception that many have.
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Re: Racist Skinheads/Neo Nazi's that donate their souls.
Three Teens Sentenced On Hate Crime Charges For Torching Mexican Family's Home
By Frank Eltman
ASSOCIATED PRESS
JulY, 2004
RIVERHEAD, N.Y. – A teenager who took part in a racially motivated firebombing of a Mexican family's home was sentenced Tuesday to up to four years in prison.
Advertisement
Two of Kyle Mahler's co-defendants received community service for the July 5, 2003, attack, in which they repeatedly shot fireworks into the Long Island home and then watched it burn to the ground without calling for help.
Mahler, 18, of Farmingville, admitted that he drove four of his friends to the immigrants' home that night. He pleaded guilty to reckless endangerment as a hate crime and was sentenced to 1 1/3 to 4 years in prison.
William Lutz, 17, was sentenced to time served – 45 days – and ordered to perform 500 hours of community service. Derek Brandafino, 17, was also ordered to perform community service.
Lutz previously pleaded guilty to reckless endangerment as a hate crime, and Brandafino pleaded guilty to fourth-degree arson as a hate crime.
Maria Garcia, her boyfriend, their two children and three others were in the Farmingville home on the night of the fire; all escaped without injury.
"This attack was not only against us," Garcia, who was in court Tuesday, said through an interpreter. "This was also an attack and insult against all of the best ideals of this beautiful nation."
The three teens apologized to Garcia and her boyfriend before receiving their sentences. Two other defendants were sentenced earlier.
The case inflamed racial tensions in Farmingville, a New York suburb that became home to a large influx of Mexican immigrants in recent years.
In 2000, two Mexican day laborers who lived next door to the house that was torched were lured to a warehouse with a promise of work, then beaten. Two men were convicted and are serving 25 years to life for attempted murder.
By Frank Eltman
ASSOCIATED PRESS
JulY, 2004
RIVERHEAD, N.Y. – A teenager who took part in a racially motivated firebombing of a Mexican family's home was sentenced Tuesday to up to four years in prison.
Advertisement
Two of Kyle Mahler's co-defendants received community service for the July 5, 2003, attack, in which they repeatedly shot fireworks into the Long Island home and then watched it burn to the ground without calling for help.
Mahler, 18, of Farmingville, admitted that he drove four of his friends to the immigrants' home that night. He pleaded guilty to reckless endangerment as a hate crime and was sentenced to 1 1/3 to 4 years in prison.
William Lutz, 17, was sentenced to time served – 45 days – and ordered to perform 500 hours of community service. Derek Brandafino, 17, was also ordered to perform community service.
Lutz previously pleaded guilty to reckless endangerment as a hate crime, and Brandafino pleaded guilty to fourth-degree arson as a hate crime.
Maria Garcia, her boyfriend, their two children and three others were in the Farmingville home on the night of the fire; all escaped without injury.
"This attack was not only against us," Garcia, who was in court Tuesday, said through an interpreter. "This was also an attack and insult against all of the best ideals of this beautiful nation."
The three teens apologized to Garcia and her boyfriend before receiving their sentences. Two other defendants were sentenced earlier.
The case inflamed racial tensions in Farmingville, a New York suburb that became home to a large influx of Mexican immigrants in recent years.
In 2000, two Mexican day laborers who lived next door to the house that was torched were lured to a warehouse with a promise of work, then beaten. Two men were convicted and are serving 25 years to life for attempted murder.
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Re: Racist Skinheads/Neo Nazi's that donate their souls.
World Church Of The Creator White supremacist Matthew Hale found......GUILTY
FACING AT LEAST 17 1/2 YEARS
BY MATT O'CONNOR, AAMER MADHANI AND BRETT MCNEIL
Chicago Tribune
AUGUST 2004
CHICAGO - (KRT) - A racially diverse federal jury on Monday convicted white supremacist Matthew Hale of soliciting his security chief to kill a federal judge in anger over her order in 2002 to change the name of his group.
The security chief, Anthony Evola, turned out to be an FBI plant in Hale's World Church of the Creator who secretly tape-recorded their conversations.
The jury of six whites, five blacks and one Hispanic acquitted Hale of a second solicitation count for allegedly asking Hale follower Jon Fox to kill the same judge. Fox didn't cooperate with authorities until months later, so the jury had no tapes to corroborate his account.
Hale was also convicted of three counts of obstructing justice in part for coaching his father to lie to a grand jury investigating the 1999 deadly rampage in Illinois and Indiana of Hale follower Benjamin Smith.
Among the most damning evidence, according to one juror, was an e-mail to Evola in which Hale sought the home address of U.S. District Judge Joan Lefkow, the target of his wrath for ordering Hale's group to change its name after it lost a trademark-infringement lawsuit to an Oregon church with a similar name.
"You think he was asking for the address to send her a birthday card?" said the juror, who, along with another juror, spoke on condition of anonymity out of concern that followers of Hale might take revenge.
The verdict disappointed Hale's lawyer, Thomas Anthony Durkin, who said he believed the government "set out to get Hale the day of the Ben Smith shootings, and they've accomplished that."
U.S. Atty. Patrick J. Fitzgerald staunchly defended government tactics in the case, saying, "I think today's message is we will not wait for the trigger to be pulled."
Neither Hale, the "Pontifex Maximus" of his so-called church, nor his parents showed any reaction to the verdict. The parents left Chicago's federal courthouse without comment.
In closing arguments, the defense contended that the undercover tape recordings showed that Evola repeatedly prodded Hale for approval to kill Lefkow.
But prosecutors said Hale got his message across to Evola to carry out the murder even though he spoke cautiously to give himself "plausible deniability."
The day after receiving the e-mail seeking Lefkow's home address, Evola, a Chicago security guard, traveled to Hale's headquarters in Downstate East Peoria on FBI instructions.
"We gonna exterminate the rat?" Evola asked in reference to Lefkow.
"Ah, my position's always been that ... I'm gonna fight within the law and but, ah, that information's been ... provided," Hale was quoted as replying. "If you wish to, ah, do anything yourself, you can, you know?"
"So that makes it clear," Hale added.
"Consider it done," Evola said.
"Good," Hale replied.
The two jurors said Evola's undercover recordings were critical.
Ultimately the debate came down to whether it was solicitation or entrapment on Evola's part, according to the jurors.
Hale is "a very intelligent man," one juror said. "This is a man who passed the bar exam. No one could make him say something he didn't want to. During those conversations, he never said no" to killing Lefkow.
"He liked to see other people do his dirty work for him," agreed the other juror. "But he never closed the door on anything."
One juror said hearing Hale speak on the undercover audiotapes about Smith's shooting rampage helped convince him that Hale was capable of commissioning a murder.
In one recording, Hale joked about how Smith's aim improved as the shooting spree went on. Prosecutors argued Hale's private remarks showed a tacit approval of violence.
"He had no remorse about the shootings," the juror said.
The two jurors said Hale was acquitted of soliciting Fox to kill the judge because Fox wasn't a credible witness and because of the lack of corroborating evidence. Fox, a leader in Hale's movement and self-avowed racist, didn't go to authorities until 10 months after the alleged solicitation.
One juror noted that Fox and James Burnett, another Hale follower who testified for the government, had "psychological issues" and that Evola had learning disabilities. "Part of it we felt was maybe (Hale) preyed on people who were weaker than him so he could wash his hands," the juror said.
The other juror said that the panel worked well with each other and the length of deliberations - nearly 2 1/2 days - was due mostly to the amount of evidence that needed to be reviewed.
"We came to our decision based on his actions, not his beliefs," the juror said.
"We were able to see past his beliefs," the other juror said.
The juror added that there were never any divisions between whites and minorities on the jury and that the group grew quite close over the two-week trial.
"We were like a family by the end of it," he said. "We were very strong."
Under federal sentencing guidelines, Hale, 32, faces as much as 17 1/2 years in prison - and possibly far more if prosecutors seek to hold Hale accountable for Smith's shooting spree, which targeted minorities, killing two, including former Northwestern basketball coach Ricky Byrdsong, and wounding nine others.
Fitzgerald declined to discuss his office's sentencing strategy in the case. But in court papers before trial, prosecutors M. David Weisman and Victoria Peters said they had evidence that Hale likely knew in advance that Smith planned to go on a shooting rampage.
U.S. District Judge James Moody, who was brought in from Hammond to preside over the trial because of inherent conflicts of interest among Lefkow's colleagues on the federal bench in Chicago, did not set a date for sentencing.
The guilty verdict was hailed by Byrdsong's widow and civil-rights and Jewish groups that have closely watched Hale's white-supremacist movement.
In a statement, Sherialyn Byrdsong, who attended closing arguments last week, said she hoped the lesson from the trial would be "that peaceful co-existence" should be a universal goal.
Richard Hirschhaut, Midwest regional director for the Anti-Defamation League, applauded the jury for seeing "through Hale's deceitful efforts to use his legal knowledge to evade responsibility for his actions."
Hirschhaut and Mark Potok, a spokesman for the Southern Poverty Law Center, which has monitored hate groups since 1981, said Hale's movement, which peaked after Smith's shootings at 200 to 300 hardcore members nationally, was already in disarray after losing the trademark lawsuit.
The group fragmented further after Hale's arrest early last year for the judge's murder solicitation and incarceration under restrictive prison conditions usually reserved for terrorist suspects, they said.
"I think this conviction is the official death of this church," Potok said.
Judge Lefkow's husband, Michael, an attorney, expressed gratitude for the help of law enforcement and the support of the judge's colleagues.
"We hope Mr. Hale will repent of his advocacy of evil," he said.
Evola testified he went to authorities in 1999 after he was troubled when an acquaintance, a Hale follower, sought his assistance in distributing hate literature in a Chicago public school where Evola then worked. At just their second meeting in early 2000, Hale asked Evola to be his security chief, Evola said.
While conceding it was his client spewing the racial invectives, Durkin wondered aloud how Hale's racial hatred could not have had a bearing on the verdict by the jury.
"There were tapes that were introduced that were god-awful, that would make any sensible person's blood curl," Durkin said. "I think to ask the jury to rise above that was maybe more than I gave them credit for."
Yet Durkin acknowledged he picked blacks for the jury because he felt they were more likely than whites to believe "the police and the government can step out of line."
Durkin blasted the government and its prosecution, saying he was "frightened by this type of case."
"I don't think you can come away with any other sense than he was prosecuted for his beliefs, and that's a very dangerous slope to do down," Durkin said.
He also ripped the Tribune for publishing a commentary by Anti-Defamation League officials during the trial that he said virtually called "for a conviction in this case." Jurors told Judge Moody they hadn't seen the op-ed piece.
Fitzgerald insisted Hale received a fair trial and pointed to the jury's lengthy deliberations and many notes seeking clarification on legal terms or transcripts of testimony.
Told by reporters of Durkin's being "frightened" by the prosecution tactics, Fitzgerald was unusually blunt in his response, saying, "Tom Durkin is frightened by every case he loses."
Fitzgerald and Thomas Kneir, special agent in charge of the FBI in Chicago, defended planting Evola in Hale's group in the months after the shooting rampage by Smith. Both disputed Hale's claim that his movement was a church.
"This is a white hate group" that "had caused violence in the past, was passing out more pamphlets regarding violence," Kneir told reporters. "The jury used their common sense in sorting through this thing and came up with the right decision."
Fitzgerald said Hale's own words on the undercover recordings were his downfall, even though Hale, trained as a lawyer, "played it quite cute."
"He's playing games on the tape," Fitzgerald said of Hale. "But he knows how to talk. He knows how to talk quite well ... I think the message on that tape was quite clear what he wanted to have done."
FACING AT LEAST 17 1/2 YEARS
BY MATT O'CONNOR, AAMER MADHANI AND BRETT MCNEIL
Chicago Tribune
AUGUST 2004
CHICAGO - (KRT) - A racially diverse federal jury on Monday convicted white supremacist Matthew Hale of soliciting his security chief to kill a federal judge in anger over her order in 2002 to change the name of his group.
The security chief, Anthony Evola, turned out to be an FBI plant in Hale's World Church of the Creator who secretly tape-recorded their conversations.
The jury of six whites, five blacks and one Hispanic acquitted Hale of a second solicitation count for allegedly asking Hale follower Jon Fox to kill the same judge. Fox didn't cooperate with authorities until months later, so the jury had no tapes to corroborate his account.
Hale was also convicted of three counts of obstructing justice in part for coaching his father to lie to a grand jury investigating the 1999 deadly rampage in Illinois and Indiana of Hale follower Benjamin Smith.
Among the most damning evidence, according to one juror, was an e-mail to Evola in which Hale sought the home address of U.S. District Judge Joan Lefkow, the target of his wrath for ordering Hale's group to change its name after it lost a trademark-infringement lawsuit to an Oregon church with a similar name.
"You think he was asking for the address to send her a birthday card?" said the juror, who, along with another juror, spoke on condition of anonymity out of concern that followers of Hale might take revenge.
The verdict disappointed Hale's lawyer, Thomas Anthony Durkin, who said he believed the government "set out to get Hale the day of the Ben Smith shootings, and they've accomplished that."
U.S. Atty. Patrick J. Fitzgerald staunchly defended government tactics in the case, saying, "I think today's message is we will not wait for the trigger to be pulled."
Neither Hale, the "Pontifex Maximus" of his so-called church, nor his parents showed any reaction to the verdict. The parents left Chicago's federal courthouse without comment.
In closing arguments, the defense contended that the undercover tape recordings showed that Evola repeatedly prodded Hale for approval to kill Lefkow.
But prosecutors said Hale got his message across to Evola to carry out the murder even though he spoke cautiously to give himself "plausible deniability."
The day after receiving the e-mail seeking Lefkow's home address, Evola, a Chicago security guard, traveled to Hale's headquarters in Downstate East Peoria on FBI instructions.
"We gonna exterminate the rat?" Evola asked in reference to Lefkow.
"Ah, my position's always been that ... I'm gonna fight within the law and but, ah, that information's been ... provided," Hale was quoted as replying. "If you wish to, ah, do anything yourself, you can, you know?"
"So that makes it clear," Hale added.
"Consider it done," Evola said.
"Good," Hale replied.
The two jurors said Evola's undercover recordings were critical.
Ultimately the debate came down to whether it was solicitation or entrapment on Evola's part, according to the jurors.
Hale is "a very intelligent man," one juror said. "This is a man who passed the bar exam. No one could make him say something he didn't want to. During those conversations, he never said no" to killing Lefkow.
"He liked to see other people do his dirty work for him," agreed the other juror. "But he never closed the door on anything."
One juror said hearing Hale speak on the undercover audiotapes about Smith's shooting rampage helped convince him that Hale was capable of commissioning a murder.
In one recording, Hale joked about how Smith's aim improved as the shooting spree went on. Prosecutors argued Hale's private remarks showed a tacit approval of violence.
"He had no remorse about the shootings," the juror said.
The two jurors said Hale was acquitted of soliciting Fox to kill the judge because Fox wasn't a credible witness and because of the lack of corroborating evidence. Fox, a leader in Hale's movement and self-avowed racist, didn't go to authorities until 10 months after the alleged solicitation.
One juror noted that Fox and James Burnett, another Hale follower who testified for the government, had "psychological issues" and that Evola had learning disabilities. "Part of it we felt was maybe (Hale) preyed on people who were weaker than him so he could wash his hands," the juror said.
The other juror said that the panel worked well with each other and the length of deliberations - nearly 2 1/2 days - was due mostly to the amount of evidence that needed to be reviewed.
"We came to our decision based on his actions, not his beliefs," the juror said.
"We were able to see past his beliefs," the other juror said.
The juror added that there were never any divisions between whites and minorities on the jury and that the group grew quite close over the two-week trial.
"We were like a family by the end of it," he said. "We were very strong."
Under federal sentencing guidelines, Hale, 32, faces as much as 17 1/2 years in prison - and possibly far more if prosecutors seek to hold Hale accountable for Smith's shooting spree, which targeted minorities, killing two, including former Northwestern basketball coach Ricky Byrdsong, and wounding nine others.
Fitzgerald declined to discuss his office's sentencing strategy in the case. But in court papers before trial, prosecutors M. David Weisman and Victoria Peters said they had evidence that Hale likely knew in advance that Smith planned to go on a shooting rampage.
U.S. District Judge James Moody, who was brought in from Hammond to preside over the trial because of inherent conflicts of interest among Lefkow's colleagues on the federal bench in Chicago, did not set a date for sentencing.
The guilty verdict was hailed by Byrdsong's widow and civil-rights and Jewish groups that have closely watched Hale's white-supremacist movement.
In a statement, Sherialyn Byrdsong, who attended closing arguments last week, said she hoped the lesson from the trial would be "that peaceful co-existence" should be a universal goal.
Richard Hirschhaut, Midwest regional director for the Anti-Defamation League, applauded the jury for seeing "through Hale's deceitful efforts to use his legal knowledge to evade responsibility for his actions."
Hirschhaut and Mark Potok, a spokesman for the Southern Poverty Law Center, which has monitored hate groups since 1981, said Hale's movement, which peaked after Smith's shootings at 200 to 300 hardcore members nationally, was already in disarray after losing the trademark lawsuit.
The group fragmented further after Hale's arrest early last year for the judge's murder solicitation and incarceration under restrictive prison conditions usually reserved for terrorist suspects, they said.
"I think this conviction is the official death of this church," Potok said.
Judge Lefkow's husband, Michael, an attorney, expressed gratitude for the help of law enforcement and the support of the judge's colleagues.
"We hope Mr. Hale will repent of his advocacy of evil," he said.
Evola testified he went to authorities in 1999 after he was troubled when an acquaintance, a Hale follower, sought his assistance in distributing hate literature in a Chicago public school where Evola then worked. At just their second meeting in early 2000, Hale asked Evola to be his security chief, Evola said.
While conceding it was his client spewing the racial invectives, Durkin wondered aloud how Hale's racial hatred could not have had a bearing on the verdict by the jury.
"There were tapes that were introduced that were god-awful, that would make any sensible person's blood curl," Durkin said. "I think to ask the jury to rise above that was maybe more than I gave them credit for."
Yet Durkin acknowledged he picked blacks for the jury because he felt they were more likely than whites to believe "the police and the government can step out of line."
Durkin blasted the government and its prosecution, saying he was "frightened by this type of case."
"I don't think you can come away with any other sense than he was prosecuted for his beliefs, and that's a very dangerous slope to do down," Durkin said.
He also ripped the Tribune for publishing a commentary by Anti-Defamation League officials during the trial that he said virtually called "for a conviction in this case." Jurors told Judge Moody they hadn't seen the op-ed piece.
Fitzgerald insisted Hale received a fair trial and pointed to the jury's lengthy deliberations and many notes seeking clarification on legal terms or transcripts of testimony.
Told by reporters of Durkin's being "frightened" by the prosecution tactics, Fitzgerald was unusually blunt in his response, saying, "Tom Durkin is frightened by every case he loses."
Fitzgerald and Thomas Kneir, special agent in charge of the FBI in Chicago, defended planting Evola in Hale's group in the months after the shooting rampage by Smith. Both disputed Hale's claim that his movement was a church.
"This is a white hate group" that "had caused violence in the past, was passing out more pamphlets regarding violence," Kneir told reporters. "The jury used their common sense in sorting through this thing and came up with the right decision."
Fitzgerald said Hale's own words on the undercover recordings were his downfall, even though Hale, trained as a lawyer, "played it quite cute."
"He's playing games on the tape," Fitzgerald said of Hale. "But he knows how to talk. He knows how to talk quite well ... I think the message on that tape was quite clear what he wanted to have done."
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AcmeWhiteBread
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Re: Racist Skinheads/Neo Nazi's that donate their souls.
you get back what you put out.....stupid ass white supremist's. They will never learn. If they want to increase the population of the white race, hence the power of it, it must be done by reasonable way such as having more babies. These guys are scum.
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Common Sense
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Re: Racist Skinheads/Neo Nazi's that donate their souls.
Four Teens Arrested In Possible Hate Crime
Police: Attack Was Racially Motivated
Dec 7, 2004
SIMI VALLEY, Calif. (AP) Police are calling an attack on a teenage boy in Simi Valley a racially motivated hate crime.
Police say the 17-year-old was selling newspapers on a city street last night when four teens walked up and started yelling racial slurs.
Investigators say one group member then punched the African American teen in the face, knocking him down. The victim tripped and dislocated his knee when he tried to flee.
Police say all four teens then started attacking the victim. Several people came to help the victim and the attackers fled.
Two teens were arrested last night and the other two were taken into custody today.
Aside from the dislocated knee, the victim escaped with minor cuts and bruises.
Investigators say racist paraphernalia was found in one of the suspect's cars.
Meanwhile, Simi Valley's mayor issued an apology on behalf of the city to the victim and his family.
Mayor Paul Miller says the city will not tolerate crimes of this type and that the incident wasn't representative of the teenagers in the community.
Police: Attack Was Racially Motivated
Dec 7, 2004
SIMI VALLEY, Calif. (AP) Police are calling an attack on a teenage boy in Simi Valley a racially motivated hate crime.
Police say the 17-year-old was selling newspapers on a city street last night when four teens walked up and started yelling racial slurs.
Investigators say one group member then punched the African American teen in the face, knocking him down. The victim tripped and dislocated his knee when he tried to flee.
Police say all four teens then started attacking the victim. Several people came to help the victim and the attackers fled.
Two teens were arrested last night and the other two were taken into custody today.
Aside from the dislocated knee, the victim escaped with minor cuts and bruises.
Investigators say racist paraphernalia was found in one of the suspect's cars.
Meanwhile, Simi Valley's mayor issued an apology on behalf of the city to the victim and his family.
Mayor Paul Miller says the city will not tolerate crimes of this type and that the incident wasn't representative of the teenagers in the community.
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Anonymous20
Re: Racist Skinheads/Neo Nazi's that donate their souls.
Yo that sh*t was down like 2 towns over from me, i remember see'n all them in the paper, bunch of fat sad lookn punksCommon Sense wrote:Three Teens Sentenced On Hate Crime Charges For Torching Mexican Family's Home
By Frank Eltman
ASSOCIATED PRESS
JulY, 2004
RIVERHEAD, N.Y. – A teenager who took part in a racially motivated firebombing of a Mexican family's home was sentenced Tuesday to up to four years in prison.
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Two of Kyle Mahler's co-defendants received community service for the July 5, 2003, attack, in which they repeatedly shot fireworks into the Long Island home and then watched it burn to the ground without calling for help.
Mahler, 18, of Farmingville, admitted that he drove four of his friends to the immigrants' home that night. He pleaded guilty to reckless endangerment as a hate crime and was sentenced to 1 1/3 to 4 years in prison.
William Lutz, 17, was sentenced to time served – 45 days – and ordered to perform 500 hours of community service. Derek Brandafino, 17, was also ordered to perform community service.
Lutz previously pleaded guilty to reckless endangerment as a hate crime, and Brandafino pleaded guilty to fourth-degree arson as a hate crime.
Maria Garcia, her boyfriend, their two children and three others were in the Farmingville home on the night of the fire; all escaped without injury.
"This attack was not only against us," Garcia, who was in court Tuesday, said through an interpreter. "This was also an attack and insult against all of the best ideals of this beautiful nation."
The three teens apologized to Garcia and her boyfriend before receiving their sentences. Two other defendants were sentenced earlier.
The case inflamed racial tensions in Farmingville, a New York suburb that became home to a large influx of Mexican immigrants in recent years.
In 2000, two Mexican day laborers who lived next door to the house that was torched were lured to a warehouse with a promise of work, then beaten. Two men were convicted and are serving 25 years to life for attempted murder.
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Common Sense
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Re: Racist Skinheads/Neo Nazi's that donate their souls.
These kids don't think.
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AcmeWhiteBread
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Re: Racist Skinheads/Neo Nazi's that donate their souls.
Compared to what? How many non whites are killing each other for no reason everday. Colors and Hoods are no reason. You can find that story everyday. These ones are nothing in comparison. Doesnt make it ok, but its way out of perspective.
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Common Sense
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Re: Racist Skinheads/Neo Nazi's that donate their souls.
I wasn't compare it to anything. They are just like the other dumb kids.
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Invincible
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Re: Racist Skinheads/Neo Nazi's that donate their souls.
Is this the St. Petersburg in Russia?Common Sense wrote:This is an old case but a good one to start this educational thread.
Jessy Joe Roten 19.................LIFE IN PRISON!
(how ironic? he's in there right with the blacks and mexicans)
Girl's neo-Nazi killer convicted
The 19-year-old, who also injured the child's sister, could be sent to prison for life on the murder and hate crime charges.
Aleesha Mance, 8, hurt in the shooting, and her mother, Yahaira Carattini, front, are hugged by victim advocate Ramona Merritt.
By WILLIAM R. LEVESQUE
© St. Petersburg Times, published October 27, 2000
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
LARGO -- Eight-year-old Aleesha Mance knew him as the "bad guy," the man from her nightmares. Now, he stood just 10 feet away.
Aleesha looked up into her mother's face, unsure why she was crying.
Jessy Joe Roten shot into the home of an interracial couple last year.
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The "bad guy," Jessy Joe Roten, a self-avowed skinhead who killed Aleesha's twin sister with a shot from an assault rifle, the neo-Nazi who nearly killed Aleesha with the same shot, stood impassively, staring straight ahead.
After deliberating eight hours, a jury Thursday found the 19-year-old Roten guilty of second-degree murder and two counts of attempted second-degree murder in the April 1999 shooting that killed 6-year-old Ashley Mance.
Jurors, rejecting a call by defense attorneys to convict him of the lesser crime of manslaughter, also decided that Roten's act was a hate crime. That enhances the potential penalty he faces when sentenced next month.
"Aleesha really knows what's going on," said her father, Terry Mance. "As far as she knows, the bad guy has been sent away never to harm her again."
Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Judge Nancy Ley set sentencing for Nov. 30. Roten faces a maximum term of life in prison without parole.
As the verdict was announced, Roten displayed no emotion. He nodded politely at the judge as she set his sentencing and quickly wiped the black ink from his fingers after bailiffs fingerprinted him.
His attorney, Buck Blankner, put a consoling arm on his shoulder and whispered in his ear.
Ashley and Aleesha's father found himself surrounded by TV cameras after the verdict, his children looking on in astonishment at the display.
He said the chest wound that nearly killed Aleesha has healed, but the emotional scars linger.
"She's seen a lot more than most grownups like us can deal with," said her father, who wore a T-shirt with a picture of his four children, including Ashley, that said, "Together throughout eternity."
Yahaira Carattini, mother of the children, said of Roten:
"I don't hate him. This will open a lot of people's minds to think before they do things. . . . Everybody's the same inside, whatever their color."
Roten's mother, Katherine Wooley, sat behind him through most of the trial but wasn't present when the verdict was read.
The shooting occurred on April 3, 1999. Roten, who had gotten into an argument with his girlfriend and into a fight with a friend, had returned to his home north of St. Petersburg.
He grabbed his SKS Chinese assault rifle and dozens of armor-piercing bullets.
At 2:30 a.m., he fired a volley of shots into the air as he stood near the Mance home. Two hours later, he returned to the alley behind his parents' house, walked past 10 other homes and fired a single shot into Mance's home.
Prosecutors Bill Loughery and Lydia Wardell say Roten knew that Mance was a black man living with his then-fiancee, Tracy Townsend, who is white. The couple have since married.
Roten, prosecutors say, particularly abhorred interracial unions.
The single shot traveling at twice the speed of sound hit Aleesha, drove through her chest and exited, then nicked the ear of her half sister, 4-year-old Jailene Jones. The bullet then struck and killed Ashley.
Loughery told jurors: "Mr. Roten's whole world was being a skinhead. That was the focus of his life. Not just a skinhead, but a neo-Nazi, white supremacist.
The bullet was Roten's "calling card," Loughery said.
Defense lawyers say Roten fired the shot by accident as he tried to fold the stock of his gun. The rifle discharged as he did so, they said.
Blankner, Roten's lead counsel, acknowledged Roten was a skinhead, but he told jurors that Roten did not fire the shot to send a message to an interracial couple.
"He did a reckless, dangerous, bone-headed, stupid, stupid thing," Blankner said during closing arguments. "And he's going to pay for it."
Roten, he said, was simply a love-struck 17-year-old angry at his girlfriend. He noted that Roten left 24 rounds in the assault rifle's magazine. If Roten had targeted Mance, Blankner said, he would have emptied the gun at the house.
But Loughery said Roten was old enough to know one thing.
Said the prosecutor, "He was old enough to know better."
Re: Racist Skinheads/Neo Nazi's that donate their souls.
Nah, I would say the St.Petersburg in Florida near Tampa
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Common Sense
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Re: Racist Skinheads/Neo Nazi's that donate their souls.
The mother of this kid (black) is going to take the four teenager's families to civil court. They could be out of alot of money.Common Sense wrote:Four Teens Arrested In Possible Hate Crime
Police: Attack Was Racially Motivated
Dec 7, 2004
SIMI VALLEY, Calif. (AP) Police are calling an attack on a teenage boy in Simi Valley a racially motivated hate crime.
Police say the 17-year-old was selling newspapers on a city street last night when four teens walked up and started yelling racial slurs.
Investigators say one group member then punched the African American teen in the face, knocking him down. The victim tripped and dislocated his knee when he tried to flee.
I think everyone should do this. Sue your attackers assets. This should apply for drive by shootings. The victims family should be able to sue the suspects family.
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Silencioso
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Re: Racist Skinheads/Neo Nazi's that donate their souls.
skinheads are fa66ots. Bring back punx. <<<< only white gangs in L.A. worth a stuff
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Silencioso
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Re: Racist Skinheads/Neo Nazi's that donate their souls.
worth a stuff!?!? Hey, I didn't write that! LOL
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Common Sense
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Re: Racist Skinheads/Neo Nazi's that donate their souls.
Teen Found Guilty In Beating
Three Others Scheduled To Appear In Court
Jan 5, 2005 11:15 am US/Pacific
SIMI VALLEY, Calif. (AP) One of four teens who allegedly beat a black youth at a suburban shopping center has been found guilty of a hate crime.
Ventura County Superior Court Judge Alan Steele has confirmed the two felony counts in connection with the December 6th attack on a 17-year-old who was selling newspaper subscriptions.
The teen, whose name was not released because of his age, could face up to eight years in custody. He remained in custody awaiting a January 19th sentencing hearing.
The victim, Jim King, has said his attackers shouted racial slurs.
The three others accused in the attack were scheduled to appear in court today for a pretrial hearing. If found guilty, each could be sentenced to up to eight years in custody.
Three Others Scheduled To Appear In Court
Jan 5, 2005 11:15 am US/Pacific
SIMI VALLEY, Calif. (AP) One of four teens who allegedly beat a black youth at a suburban shopping center has been found guilty of a hate crime.
Ventura County Superior Court Judge Alan Steele has confirmed the two felony counts in connection with the December 6th attack on a 17-year-old who was selling newspaper subscriptions.
The teen, whose name was not released because of his age, could face up to eight years in custody. He remained in custody awaiting a January 19th sentencing hearing.
The victim, Jim King, has said his attackers shouted racial slurs.
The three others accused in the attack were scheduled to appear in court today for a pretrial hearing. If found guilty, each could be sentenced to up to eight years in custody.
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Common Sense
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Re: Racist Skinheads/Neo Nazi's that donate their souls.
Supremacist Hale Sentenced to 40 Years
By MIKE ROBINSON, Associated Press Writer
CHICAGO - Avowed white supremacist Matthew Hale was sentenced to 40 years in prison Wednesday for trying to have a federal judge killed — the same judge whose husband and mother were murdered five weeks ago by a deranged man with no connection to Hale.
Hale, the 33-year-old leader of a group that preaches racial holy war, was sentenced after a rambling, two-hour speech in which he claimed he was the victim and even recited part of "The Star Spangled Banner." He showed no emotion and sat staring at the defense table as the sentence was handed down.
Prosecutors argued for the maximum sentence, saying Hale's crime amounted to an act of terrorism, and the judge agreed.
"Mr. Hale is not concerned about taking someone's life, but rather how to do it without getting caught," U.S. District Judge James Moody said in imposing the sentence. "I consider Mr. Hale to be extremely dangerous and the offense for which he was convicted to be extremely egregious."
Hale was convicted in April 2004 of soliciting an undercover FBI informant to murder U.S. District Judge Joan Humphrey Lefkow of Chicago in retaliation for her ruling against him in a trademark dispute.
Prosecutors said Hale was furious that Lefkow ordered him to stop using the World Church of the Creator name for his group. Lefkow said the name was trademarked by an Oregon-based church group.
The case took on a higher profile after Lefkow's husband and elderly, frail mother were shot and killed in the Lefkow home in late February.
Early suspicion fell on Hale followers, but days later a Chicago man disgruntled over a ruling in his medical malpractice lawsuit fatally shot himself in Wisconsin and confessed to the slayings in a note.
Hale acted as his own attorney during the sentencing, as he had for much of the trial. He compared himself to Lefkow, saying they were both victims.
U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald said afterward that Hale was wrong to think he was morally justified and could get away it by using someone else to carry out violence.
"I put no stock in his claims, the crocodile tears, that he didn't do anything wrong," Fitzgerald said.
In his rambling, arm-waving speech to the court, Hale brought up the murders, despite Moody's efforts to stop him. He compared the FBI to the Gestapo, claimed the news media smeared him, said he had been poorly represented by his former lawyer and ended by reciting the last lines of the national anthem.
He also said he considered Lefkow and himself to be "on the same side against these liars."
"Before you does stand a man who not only is innocent, not only is demonstrably innocent, but who refused to join a plot against Judge Lefkow's life," Hale said.
At one point, he turned to prosecutors and courtroom audience and begged them: "Somebody tell her that it's a lie, somebody tell this poor woman."
A court officials said Lefkow stayed away from the building Wednesday to avoid the hearing.
Hale's parents and brother sat together in court during the hearing.
"I think it's absolutely horrible," Hale's mother, Evelyn Hutcheson, said. "Matt's the only one in there telling the ... truth."
By MIKE ROBINSON, Associated Press Writer
CHICAGO - Avowed white supremacist Matthew Hale was sentenced to 40 years in prison Wednesday for trying to have a federal judge killed — the same judge whose husband and mother were murdered five weeks ago by a deranged man with no connection to Hale.
Hale, the 33-year-old leader of a group that preaches racial holy war, was sentenced after a rambling, two-hour speech in which he claimed he was the victim and even recited part of "The Star Spangled Banner." He showed no emotion and sat staring at the defense table as the sentence was handed down.
Prosecutors argued for the maximum sentence, saying Hale's crime amounted to an act of terrorism, and the judge agreed.
"Mr. Hale is not concerned about taking someone's life, but rather how to do it without getting caught," U.S. District Judge James Moody said in imposing the sentence. "I consider Mr. Hale to be extremely dangerous and the offense for which he was convicted to be extremely egregious."
Hale was convicted in April 2004 of soliciting an undercover FBI informant to murder U.S. District Judge Joan Humphrey Lefkow of Chicago in retaliation for her ruling against him in a trademark dispute.
Prosecutors said Hale was furious that Lefkow ordered him to stop using the World Church of the Creator name for his group. Lefkow said the name was trademarked by an Oregon-based church group.
The case took on a higher profile after Lefkow's husband and elderly, frail mother were shot and killed in the Lefkow home in late February.
Early suspicion fell on Hale followers, but days later a Chicago man disgruntled over a ruling in his medical malpractice lawsuit fatally shot himself in Wisconsin and confessed to the slayings in a note.
Hale acted as his own attorney during the sentencing, as he had for much of the trial. He compared himself to Lefkow, saying they were both victims.
U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald said afterward that Hale was wrong to think he was morally justified and could get away it by using someone else to carry out violence.
"I put no stock in his claims, the crocodile tears, that he didn't do anything wrong," Fitzgerald said.
In his rambling, arm-waving speech to the court, Hale brought up the murders, despite Moody's efforts to stop him. He compared the FBI to the Gestapo, claimed the news media smeared him, said he had been poorly represented by his former lawyer and ended by reciting the last lines of the national anthem.
He also said he considered Lefkow and himself to be "on the same side against these liars."
"Before you does stand a man who not only is innocent, not only is demonstrably innocent, but who refused to join a plot against Judge Lefkow's life," Hale said.
At one point, he turned to prosecutors and courtroom audience and begged them: "Somebody tell her that it's a lie, somebody tell this poor woman."
A court officials said Lefkow stayed away from the building Wednesday to avoid the hearing.
Hale's parents and brother sat together in court during the hearing.
"I think it's absolutely horrible," Hale's mother, Evelyn Hutcheson, said. "Matt's the only one in there telling the ... truth."
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Common Sense
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California Racist Skinhead Convicted of Murder
September 12, 2006
A Madera County, California, jury has convicted a member of the Small Town Peckerwoods, a racist group with ties to the racist prison gang Nazi Low Riders, of first-degree murder for the 2004 stabbing death of a California woman who was allegedly killed as part of an initiation rite.
Michael Williams, 26, was found guilty on September 6, 2006, by a Madera County jury in the death of a 19-year-old Madera woman. The jury found Williams guilty of active participation in a criminal street gang, finding that the murder was committed to further the Small Town Peckerwoods.
A second defendant, Raymond Elisarraras, hanged himself in the county jail two years ago.
The incident occurred after a party where nearly all of the men present were Peckerwoods. A Madera police officer testified that the two may have committed the murder as part of an initiation rite into the Nazi Low Riders.
Prosecutors also believe that the woman may have been killed because she was a possible informant in the murder trial of a Nazi Low Rider member sentenced to death.
Williams faces a potential sentence of life in prison without possibility of parole.
http://www.adl.org/learn/extremism_in_t ... n_the_News
September 12, 2006
A Madera County, California, jury has convicted a member of the Small Town Peckerwoods, a racist group with ties to the racist prison gang Nazi Low Riders, of first-degree murder for the 2004 stabbing death of a California woman who was allegedly killed as part of an initiation rite.
Michael Williams, 26, was found guilty on September 6, 2006, by a Madera County jury in the death of a 19-year-old Madera woman. The jury found Williams guilty of active participation in a criminal street gang, finding that the murder was committed to further the Small Town Peckerwoods.
A second defendant, Raymond Elisarraras, hanged himself in the county jail two years ago.
The incident occurred after a party where nearly all of the men present were Peckerwoods. A Madera police officer testified that the two may have committed the murder as part of an initiation rite into the Nazi Low Riders.
Prosecutors also believe that the woman may have been killed because she was a possible informant in the murder trial of a Nazi Low Rider member sentenced to death.
Williams faces a potential sentence of life in prison without possibility of parole.
http://www.adl.org/learn/extremism_in_t ... n_the_News
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Common Sense
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Skinhead Gang Member Gets 38-year Sentence
October 5, 2006
Greely Tribune
Rebecca Boyle
California
Nicholas Vovos' hair was shorn for his sentencing hearing, so all the sheriff's deputies and attorneys gathered in court clearly saw the gothic-style letters tattooed on the back of his head.
They spelled "Muscoy Boy," referring to a town in California where Vovos was a member of a skinhead gang, according to law enforcement.
It is part of who he is, and it's the only part people in the criminal justice system got to see, his lawyer said.
Before Vovos, 24, was sentenced to 38 years in state prison Wednesday, his lawyer wanted them to see more.
Vovos was convicted in July of attempted murder and assault on peace officers, stemming from a shootout with police in Lochbuie on July 3, 2005, in which his wife was killed. He now faces murder charges in California, where prosecutors might consider seeking the death penalty.
Vovos spent more than half his life in juvenile adjudication, foster homes and the California penal system. He was neglected and molested by what little family he had. He is a poet, an artist and a sensitive young man with lots of wasted potential, said his lawyer, deputy state public defender Stephanie Stout.
Vovos told her that before he worked with her and fellow public defender Annette Kundelius, he never knew adults who cared about him, Stout recalled.
He sent both attorneys handmade birthday cards shortly after his trial.
"This sentencing hearing is one that I've been dreading," Stout said. "I'm very sorry that they (the judge and prosecution) only get to know him for the very worst thing that he's done, because he's so much more than that."
He is also a previously convicted felon, now sentenced for the additional felonies of attempting to kill the police officers who tried to apprehend him.
He and his wife, Deborah Sue Miller Vovos, were wanted for questioning in the disappearance of Carolyn Dunn Avdeef, 62, whose body was later found in a shallow grave in the San Bernadino Mountains west of Los Angeles.
Homicide detective Daniel Salcedo of the Orange County Sheriff-Coroner Department attended the hearing, where he thanked his Morgan and Weld county counterparts for tracking Vovos and arresting him.
Morgan County Deputy Monty English chased Vovos into Weld County and ultimately became the target of Vovos' shotgun. He rammed his patrol car into Avdeef's blue Honda, which Vovos was driving, after spiked sticks didn't stop Vovos from fleeing.
English recalled how Stout said in her closing arguments that law enforcement were partially at fault for the incident.
"It is Nicholas Vovos' fault, because he is a coward," English said.
Salcedo said the district attorney's office in Orange County would start getting together a murder case against Vovos and try to extradite him by early 2007.
"It will be a judicial arm-wrestle," he said.
http://www.greeleytrib.com/article/2006 ... /110050128
October 5, 2006
Greely Tribune
Rebecca Boyle
California
Nicholas Vovos' hair was shorn for his sentencing hearing, so all the sheriff's deputies and attorneys gathered in court clearly saw the gothic-style letters tattooed on the back of his head.
They spelled "Muscoy Boy," referring to a town in California where Vovos was a member of a skinhead gang, according to law enforcement.
It is part of who he is, and it's the only part people in the criminal justice system got to see, his lawyer said.
Before Vovos, 24, was sentenced to 38 years in state prison Wednesday, his lawyer wanted them to see more.
Vovos was convicted in July of attempted murder and assault on peace officers, stemming from a shootout with police in Lochbuie on July 3, 2005, in which his wife was killed. He now faces murder charges in California, where prosecutors might consider seeking the death penalty.
Vovos spent more than half his life in juvenile adjudication, foster homes and the California penal system. He was neglected and molested by what little family he had. He is a poet, an artist and a sensitive young man with lots of wasted potential, said his lawyer, deputy state public defender Stephanie Stout.
Vovos told her that before he worked with her and fellow public defender Annette Kundelius, he never knew adults who cared about him, Stout recalled.
He sent both attorneys handmade birthday cards shortly after his trial.
"This sentencing hearing is one that I've been dreading," Stout said. "I'm very sorry that they (the judge and prosecution) only get to know him for the very worst thing that he's done, because he's so much more than that."
He is also a previously convicted felon, now sentenced for the additional felonies of attempting to kill the police officers who tried to apprehend him.
He and his wife, Deborah Sue Miller Vovos, were wanted for questioning in the disappearance of Carolyn Dunn Avdeef, 62, whose body was later found in a shallow grave in the San Bernadino Mountains west of Los Angeles.
Homicide detective Daniel Salcedo of the Orange County Sheriff-Coroner Department attended the hearing, where he thanked his Morgan and Weld county counterparts for tracking Vovos and arresting him.
Morgan County Deputy Monty English chased Vovos into Weld County and ultimately became the target of Vovos' shotgun. He rammed his patrol car into Avdeef's blue Honda, which Vovos was driving, after spiked sticks didn't stop Vovos from fleeing.
English recalled how Stout said in her closing arguments that law enforcement were partially at fault for the incident.
"It is Nicholas Vovos' fault, because he is a coward," English said.
Salcedo said the district attorney's office in Orange County would start getting together a murder case against Vovos and try to extradite him by early 2007.
"It will be a judicial arm-wrestle," he said.
http://www.greeleytrib.com/article/2006 ... /110050128
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Madera Gang Member Sentenced for killing and Burning a Woman
January 17, 2007
Madera, Calif.
A gangster who fatally stabbed a woman and set her ablaze because she dated more than one member of the Small Town Peckerwoods was sentenced to life in prison without parole.
Michael Williams, 26, of Madera was convicted in September of murdering Rose Ann Johnston, 19. Her body was found stuffed in the back of her car, which was torched and abandoned in an orchard in 2004.
Williams was also convicted of participating in a gang and the killing was found to be "for the benefit of the gang," Madera County District Attorney Ernest LiCalsi said Tuesday.
During the trial, witnesses testified that Williams was angry because Johnston broke up the solidarity of the group.
Williams told jurors the Small Town Peckerwoods was "not a gang. It's a group of friends that get together."
A co-defendent in the case, Raymond Elisarraras, 30, was found hanged in his single-inmate Madera County Jail cell before the trial ended.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f ... =printable
January 17, 2007
Madera, Calif.
A gangster who fatally stabbed a woman and set her ablaze because she dated more than one member of the Small Town Peckerwoods was sentenced to life in prison without parole.
Michael Williams, 26, of Madera was convicted in September of murdering Rose Ann Johnston, 19. Her body was found stuffed in the back of her car, which was torched and abandoned in an orchard in 2004.
Williams was also convicted of participating in a gang and the killing was found to be "for the benefit of the gang," Madera County District Attorney Ernest LiCalsi said Tuesday.
During the trial, witnesses testified that Williams was angry because Johnston broke up the solidarity of the group.
Williams told jurors the Small Town Peckerwoods was "not a gang. It's a group of friends that get together."
A co-defendent in the case, Raymond Elisarraras, 30, was found hanged in his single-inmate Madera County Jail cell before the trial ended.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f ... =printable
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IN BRIEF ORANGE COUNTY / HUNTINGTON BEACH
Gang member sentenced in hate-crime case
From L.A. Times Staff Reports
January 23, 2007
A Huntington Beach man was sentenced to nearly three years in state prison Monday after pleading guilty to felony hate-crime charges for yelling racial slurs and spitting on a black man in a wheelchair.
Ronald Lee Bray, 25, was identified by the Orange County district attorney's office as a member of a white supremacist gang. Bray also rolled the man's wheelchair into a light post and raised his arm in a Nazi salute during the July 7, 2006, incident in Costa Mesa, the district attorney's office said.
CS Commentary:
This fool is going to get jacked in the pen, and most likely by his own people.
Gang member sentenced in hate-crime case
From L.A. Times Staff Reports
January 23, 2007
A Huntington Beach man was sentenced to nearly three years in state prison Monday after pleading guilty to felony hate-crime charges for yelling racial slurs and spitting on a black man in a wheelchair.
Ronald Lee Bray, 25, was identified by the Orange County district attorney's office as a member of a white supremacist gang. Bray also rolled the man's wheelchair into a light post and raised his arm in a Nazi salute during the July 7, 2006, incident in Costa Mesa, the district attorney's office said.
CS Commentary:
This fool is going to get jacked in the pen, and most likely by his own people.
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[align=center]White Supremacist Gang Members Convicted of Murder[/align]
Los Angeles Times
Published on July 11, 2007
Two members of the gang Public Enemy Number One were convicted Tuesday of executing a founder of the white supremacist organization in 2002 in retaliation for giving away some of its secrets on a television news program.
Michael Lamb and Jacob Rump also were convicted of trying to kill an undercover police officer who was on their trail three days after gang founder Scott Miller was found dead in an Anaheim alley with a single gunshot wound to the back of his head.
The verdict in the Orange County courtroom came after an exhaustive trial that exposed the depths of the hate group's violent underworld. Public Enemy openly promotes white power and gained notoriety for putting out a hit list with a judge, prosecutors and police on it. […]
Los Angeles Times
Published on July 11, 2007
Two members of the gang Public Enemy Number One were convicted Tuesday of executing a founder of the white supremacist organization in 2002 in retaliation for giving away some of its secrets on a television news program.
Michael Lamb and Jacob Rump also were convicted of trying to kill an undercover police officer who was on their trail three days after gang founder Scott Miller was found dead in an Anaheim alley with a single gunshot wound to the back of his head.
The verdict in the Orange County courtroom came after an exhaustive trial that exposed the depths of the hate group's violent underworld. Public Enemy openly promotes white power and gained notoriety for putting out a hit list with a judge, prosecutors and police on it. […]
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Two members of Public Enemy Number 1(PENI),a large and violent white supremacist gang based in Southern California, were found guilty of first-degree murder and other charges related to their activities with the gang.
Michael Allen Lamb, 32, and Jacob Anthony Rump, 30, both of Huntington Beach, were convicted of first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder, and committing murder for the benefit of the gang.
The verdict came in on July 10, ten days after the Santa Ana jury began their deliberations. Eleven sheriff’s deputies stood on guard in the courtroom while the verdict was read.
The pair ambushed Scott Miller, 38, a founder of PENI, a year after he participated in an iinterview on Fox News in Los Angeles in which he revealed information about the gang, including its drug trafficking activities. Thought the television station altered Miller’s voice and only showed him in silhouette, some of his unique tattoos were visible. Miller also brought his pet pit bull dog to the interview, and the dog was also visible. Miller was found shot in the back of the head on March 8, 2002, in an Anaheim alley, in retaliation for the interview.
During the six-week trial the defense called former PENI member Billy Joe Johnson to the stand to testify that he, not the defendants, was responsible for killing Miller. Johnson is currently serving 45 years to life in prison for beating a man to death with a hammer in Huntington Beach in 2004.
Johnson claimed that he shot Miller and that Lamp and Rump were not involved, although he claimed that he did give Lamb the gun the next day. Under cross-examination, Johnson could not correctly describe the firearm, despite testifying that he had owned it for six months.
A key witness for the prosecution was former PENI member Darryl Mason, who testified that Lamb bragged to him about killing Miller three months after the murder.
Lamb and Rump were also charged with attempting to kill an Anaheim police officer, whom Lamb allegedly shot at while being chased by police several days after Miller’s body was found. Ballistics tests revealed that the gun fired at the officer was the same one used to kill Miller. Lamb and Rump were each only convicted of being a felon in possession of a firearm for the attempted shooting.
Lamb, who is believed to be the actual triggerman, faces the death penalty. Rump faces life in prison without the possibility of parole at his sentencing.
Michael Allen Lamb, 32, and Jacob Anthony Rump, 30, both of Huntington Beach, were convicted of first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder, and committing murder for the benefit of the gang.
The verdict came in on July 10, ten days after the Santa Ana jury began their deliberations. Eleven sheriff’s deputies stood on guard in the courtroom while the verdict was read.
The pair ambushed Scott Miller, 38, a founder of PENI, a year after he participated in an iinterview on Fox News in Los Angeles in which he revealed information about the gang, including its drug trafficking activities. Thought the television station altered Miller’s voice and only showed him in silhouette, some of his unique tattoos were visible. Miller also brought his pet pit bull dog to the interview, and the dog was also visible. Miller was found shot in the back of the head on March 8, 2002, in an Anaheim alley, in retaliation for the interview.
During the six-week trial the defense called former PENI member Billy Joe Johnson to the stand to testify that he, not the defendants, was responsible for killing Miller. Johnson is currently serving 45 years to life in prison for beating a man to death with a hammer in Huntington Beach in 2004.
Johnson claimed that he shot Miller and that Lamp and Rump were not involved, although he claimed that he did give Lamb the gun the next day. Under cross-examination, Johnson could not correctly describe the firearm, despite testifying that he had owned it for six months.
A key witness for the prosecution was former PENI member Darryl Mason, who testified that Lamb bragged to him about killing Miller three months after the murder.
Lamb and Rump were also charged with attempting to kill an Anaheim police officer, whom Lamb allegedly shot at while being chased by police several days after Miller’s body was found. Ballistics tests revealed that the gun fired at the officer was the same one used to kill Miller. Lamb and Rump were each only convicted of being a felon in possession of a firearm for the attempted shooting.
Lamb, who is believed to be the actual triggerman, faces the death penalty. Rump faces life in prison without the possibility of parole at his sentencing.
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Swastika-Laden Gang Member Sentenced To Life In Prison
Man Killed Other Member In Retaliation For Interview With Fox News
October 5, 2007
SANTA ANA, Calif. -- A gang member convicted of participating in the retaliation killing of a fellow gang member was sentenced on Friday to life in prison without parole.
Jacob Anthony Rump, 31, was convicted in July of murder and other charges stemming from the slaying of Scott Miller, a founding member of Public Enemy No. 1, who was targeted for airing the gang's "dirty laundry" in a television news interview.
In additional to life without parole, Rump was sentenced to 83 years to life in prison as well as additional life terms, by Orange County Superior Court Judge William Froeberg, said Senior Deputy District Attorney Ebrahim Baytieh.
Rump and Michael Lamb, 32, -- who both sport such tattoos as swastikas and "white power" -- were convicted July 10 of murder, conspiracy to commit a crime, committing murder for the benefit of a criminal street gang, attempted murder of a police officer, street terrorism and firearms-possession counts.
Prosecutors sought the death penalty against Lamb as the alleged triggerman on March 8, 2002, when Miller was lured from a party in the guise of buying drugs in Anaheim. He was shot in the back of the head in an alley in Anaheim, prosecutors said.
Lamb also fired a shot three days later at an Anaheim police officer who was trying to arrest the pair. The two were arrested after the gun jammed, prosecutors said.
The jury that convicted the men were deadlocked as to whether to recommend the death penalty for Lamb, but prosecutors said they will seek execution again.
Before Froeberg imposed the term, Rump made a statement reiterating argument by his attorney that there was insufficient evidence to convict him.
Defense attorney Robeson Harley asked Froeberg to weigh the evidence independently of the jury, arguing that Rump was largely convicted on the basis of "spill over" evidence presented against Lamb.
However, Froeberg concluded that he would have reached the same verdicts as the jury, Baytieh said.
Rump had asked to be tried separately, but prosecutors would not agree, Harley said.
Harley said he asked few questions of witnesses because he felt most of the evidence was weighted against Lamb, not Rump.
The issue of the separate trial and others will be the basis for an appeal, Harley said.
The reason for the slaying, Baytieh said, was that Miller, known as "Scottish," aired gang dirty laundry in a two-part news report.
The story, broadcast Feb. 20-21, 2001, focused on the evolution of the gang from punk rockers in Long Beach to racist skinheads to criminal thugs, Baytieh said.
Miller was featured in the first part of the Fox News Channel investigative report, Baytieh said.
The segment was taped in 1999, but did not air until six days before two leaders of the gang were set to go on trial on charges of conspiracy to commit murder in another case, Baytieh said.
http://www.knbc.com/news/14283065/detail.html
Man Killed Other Member In Retaliation For Interview With Fox News
October 5, 2007
SANTA ANA, Calif. -- A gang member convicted of participating in the retaliation killing of a fellow gang member was sentenced on Friday to life in prison without parole.
Jacob Anthony Rump, 31, was convicted in July of murder and other charges stemming from the slaying of Scott Miller, a founding member of Public Enemy No. 1, who was targeted for airing the gang's "dirty laundry" in a television news interview.
In additional to life without parole, Rump was sentenced to 83 years to life in prison as well as additional life terms, by Orange County Superior Court Judge William Froeberg, said Senior Deputy District Attorney Ebrahim Baytieh.
Rump and Michael Lamb, 32, -- who both sport such tattoos as swastikas and "white power" -- were convicted July 10 of murder, conspiracy to commit a crime, committing murder for the benefit of a criminal street gang, attempted murder of a police officer, street terrorism and firearms-possession counts.
Prosecutors sought the death penalty against Lamb as the alleged triggerman on March 8, 2002, when Miller was lured from a party in the guise of buying drugs in Anaheim. He was shot in the back of the head in an alley in Anaheim, prosecutors said.
Lamb also fired a shot three days later at an Anaheim police officer who was trying to arrest the pair. The two were arrested after the gun jammed, prosecutors said.
The jury that convicted the men were deadlocked as to whether to recommend the death penalty for Lamb, but prosecutors said they will seek execution again.
Before Froeberg imposed the term, Rump made a statement reiterating argument by his attorney that there was insufficient evidence to convict him.
Defense attorney Robeson Harley asked Froeberg to weigh the evidence independently of the jury, arguing that Rump was largely convicted on the basis of "spill over" evidence presented against Lamb.
However, Froeberg concluded that he would have reached the same verdicts as the jury, Baytieh said.
Rump had asked to be tried separately, but prosecutors would not agree, Harley said.
Harley said he asked few questions of witnesses because he felt most of the evidence was weighted against Lamb, not Rump.
The issue of the separate trial and others will be the basis for an appeal, Harley said.
The reason for the slaying, Baytieh said, was that Miller, known as "Scottish," aired gang dirty laundry in a two-part news report.
The story, broadcast Feb. 20-21, 2001, focused on the evolution of the gang from punk rockers in Long Beach to racist skinheads to criminal thugs, Baytieh said.
Miller was featured in the first part of the Fox News Channel investigative report, Baytieh said.
The segment was taped in 1999, but did not air until six days before two leaders of the gang were set to go on trial on charges of conspiracy to commit murder in another case, Baytieh said.
http://www.knbc.com/news/14283065/detail.html
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Re: Racist Skinheads/Neo Nazi's that donate their souls.
L.I. Man Gets 25-Year Term in Killing of Immigrant
By MANNY FERNANDEZ
Published: May 26, 2010
RIVERHEAD, N.Y. — The white Long Island teenager convicted of killing a Hispanic immigrant in a 2008 hate crime attack in Patchogue was sentenced on Wednesday to 25 years in prison in a hearing that ended with the teenager’s father leaving the courtroom in a tearful rage.
The teenager, Jeffrey Conroy, now 19, stood next to his lawyer in State Supreme Court here as Justice Robert W. Doyle told a courtroom filled with relatives, friends and supporters of both Mr. Conroy and the immigrant, Marcelo Lucero, that the proof of Mr. Conroy’s guilt was “overwhelming” and that he was convicted of “senseless and brutal crimes.”
The 25-year sentence was the longest possible for first-degree manslaughter as a hate crime, the most serious charge Mr. Conroy faced. Moments after the judge spoke, Mr. Conroy’s father, Robert Conroy, 49, a quiet presence in the courtroom during the nearly seven-week trial, stood up and, cursing, shouted that his son was only 17 at the time.
“This is mercy, for crying out loud?” he yelled from the back of the courtroom as he made his way outside surrounded by court officers, who restrained him briefly after he punched the doors or a wall.
Mr. Conroy was found guilty on April 19 of attacking Mr. Lucero in a train station parking lot in November 2008, one of a series of assaults that prosecutors said Mr. Conroy and six friends carried out as part of an activity that the young men described as “beaner-hopping” or “Mexican-hopping.”
Shortly before the sentencing was announced, Jeffrey Conroy seemed to apologize as he faced the judge. “I’m really sorry for what happened to Mr. Lucero,” he said, adding that every day he wished it never happened.
The defense lawyer, William Keahon, read aloud several of the nearly 100 letters that had been sent to the court from Mr. Conroy’s supporters — coaches, neighbors, and adult and teenage friends who asked for leniency. The letters described Mr. Conroy not as hate filled, but as someone who served as a volunteer mentor and coach to football and lacrosse players.
The letters also noted how Mr. Conroy had numerous Hispanic friends, including the woman he has said he plans to marry, Pamela Suarez, who is Bolivian.
But those sentiments were countered by the emotional words of the victim’s brother and sister.
Mr. Lucero’s younger brother, Joselo Lucero, 35, said that his brother became his role model and father figure after their father died when Joselo was 6. His brother’s death left him distraught, with nightmares and even thoughts of suicide, he said.
“When I found out my brother got killed, my entire life collapsed, and I don’t know what to say,” Joselo Lucero said, adding, “He’s a godfather to my nephew. He’s 4 years old. He never got to meet my brother, his uncle, his godfather.”
He spoke of justice for “the invisibles,” whom he described as the legal and illegal immigrants who come to the United States seeking a better life. “I don’t want this hate to continue,” he said.
Speaking through a translator, Mr. Lucero’s sister, Isabel Lucero, said that she would have wanted Mr. Conroy to be present the day she and her mother learned her brother had been killed, and that she did not forgive Mr. Conroy.
Mr. Lucero, 37, a worker at a dry cleaning shop who had come from Gualaceo, Ecuador, was walking with a friend to another friend’s house on the night of the attack. They were surrounded by the seven young men, all students at Patchogue-Medford High School at the time, the authorities said.
After deliberating for four days, a jury found Mr. Conroy guilty of first-degree manslaughter as a hate crime and other charges, in connection with Mr. Lucero’s death. He was also found guilty of attempted assaults on three other Hispanic men. On the manslaughter charge, Mr. Conroy faced a minimum of 8 years and a maximum of 25 years.
Mr. Conroy received the maximum sentence on all the charges against him, but because the sentences are to run concurrently, and because he has already served nearly two years and will receive credit for good behavior, he could actually serve 18 years, his lawyer said.
Mr. Conroy is appealing the conviction. He testified that he lied to the police when he told them he stabbed Mr. Lucero because he wanted to protect another teenager, whom he said had confessed to him to stabbing Mr. Lucero.
Bloodstains on the knife that the police found on Mr. Conroy, as well as on the gray tank-top and the jeans he wore, matched Mr. Lucero’s DNA.
Before the sentencing, the idea of healing and forgiveness seemed a kind of backdrop to the proceedings. Mr. Lucero’s mother, Maria Rosario Lucero, had spoken in the past of asking God to forgive Mr. Conroy.
In recent days, Mr. Conroy’s father had reached out to the Rev. Dwight Lee Wolter, the pastor of the church where Mr. Lucero’s funeral was held, the Congregational Church of Patchogue, and asked him to arrange a private meeting between the Conroy and Lucero families. Although that meeting had not happened, Mr. Wolter was optimistic that it would.
Following the sentencing and Robert Conroy’s outburst, the pastor said he was frustrated that the process of reconciliation had taken several steps back.
“It’s more polarized now than it was the day of the funeral,” said the Rev. Wolter, the author of three books on forgiveness. “I feel sick to my stomach because of the rage, the pain, the lack of any kind of closure.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/27/nyreg ... hogue.html
By MANNY FERNANDEZ
Published: May 26, 2010
RIVERHEAD, N.Y. — The white Long Island teenager convicted of killing a Hispanic immigrant in a 2008 hate crime attack in Patchogue was sentenced on Wednesday to 25 years in prison in a hearing that ended with the teenager’s father leaving the courtroom in a tearful rage.
The teenager, Jeffrey Conroy, now 19, stood next to his lawyer in State Supreme Court here as Justice Robert W. Doyle told a courtroom filled with relatives, friends and supporters of both Mr. Conroy and the immigrant, Marcelo Lucero, that the proof of Mr. Conroy’s guilt was “overwhelming” and that he was convicted of “senseless and brutal crimes.”
The 25-year sentence was the longest possible for first-degree manslaughter as a hate crime, the most serious charge Mr. Conroy faced. Moments after the judge spoke, Mr. Conroy’s father, Robert Conroy, 49, a quiet presence in the courtroom during the nearly seven-week trial, stood up and, cursing, shouted that his son was only 17 at the time.
“This is mercy, for crying out loud?” he yelled from the back of the courtroom as he made his way outside surrounded by court officers, who restrained him briefly after he punched the doors or a wall.
Mr. Conroy was found guilty on April 19 of attacking Mr. Lucero in a train station parking lot in November 2008, one of a series of assaults that prosecutors said Mr. Conroy and six friends carried out as part of an activity that the young men described as “beaner-hopping” or “Mexican-hopping.”
Shortly before the sentencing was announced, Jeffrey Conroy seemed to apologize as he faced the judge. “I’m really sorry for what happened to Mr. Lucero,” he said, adding that every day he wished it never happened.
The defense lawyer, William Keahon, read aloud several of the nearly 100 letters that had been sent to the court from Mr. Conroy’s supporters — coaches, neighbors, and adult and teenage friends who asked for leniency. The letters described Mr. Conroy not as hate filled, but as someone who served as a volunteer mentor and coach to football and lacrosse players.
The letters also noted how Mr. Conroy had numerous Hispanic friends, including the woman he has said he plans to marry, Pamela Suarez, who is Bolivian.
But those sentiments were countered by the emotional words of the victim’s brother and sister.
Mr. Lucero’s younger brother, Joselo Lucero, 35, said that his brother became his role model and father figure after their father died when Joselo was 6. His brother’s death left him distraught, with nightmares and even thoughts of suicide, he said.
“When I found out my brother got killed, my entire life collapsed, and I don’t know what to say,” Joselo Lucero said, adding, “He’s a godfather to my nephew. He’s 4 years old. He never got to meet my brother, his uncle, his godfather.”
He spoke of justice for “the invisibles,” whom he described as the legal and illegal immigrants who come to the United States seeking a better life. “I don’t want this hate to continue,” he said.
Speaking through a translator, Mr. Lucero’s sister, Isabel Lucero, said that she would have wanted Mr. Conroy to be present the day she and her mother learned her brother had been killed, and that she did not forgive Mr. Conroy.
Mr. Lucero, 37, a worker at a dry cleaning shop who had come from Gualaceo, Ecuador, was walking with a friend to another friend’s house on the night of the attack. They were surrounded by the seven young men, all students at Patchogue-Medford High School at the time, the authorities said.
After deliberating for four days, a jury found Mr. Conroy guilty of first-degree manslaughter as a hate crime and other charges, in connection with Mr. Lucero’s death. He was also found guilty of attempted assaults on three other Hispanic men. On the manslaughter charge, Mr. Conroy faced a minimum of 8 years and a maximum of 25 years.
Mr. Conroy received the maximum sentence on all the charges against him, but because the sentences are to run concurrently, and because he has already served nearly two years and will receive credit for good behavior, he could actually serve 18 years, his lawyer said.
Mr. Conroy is appealing the conviction. He testified that he lied to the police when he told them he stabbed Mr. Lucero because he wanted to protect another teenager, whom he said had confessed to him to stabbing Mr. Lucero.
Bloodstains on the knife that the police found on Mr. Conroy, as well as on the gray tank-top and the jeans he wore, matched Mr. Lucero’s DNA.
Before the sentencing, the idea of healing and forgiveness seemed a kind of backdrop to the proceedings. Mr. Lucero’s mother, Maria Rosario Lucero, had spoken in the past of asking God to forgive Mr. Conroy.
In recent days, Mr. Conroy’s father had reached out to the Rev. Dwight Lee Wolter, the pastor of the church where Mr. Lucero’s funeral was held, the Congregational Church of Patchogue, and asked him to arrange a private meeting between the Conroy and Lucero families. Although that meeting had not happened, Mr. Wolter was optimistic that it would.
Following the sentencing and Robert Conroy’s outburst, the pastor said he was frustrated that the process of reconciliation had taken several steps back.
“It’s more polarized now than it was the day of the funeral,” said the Rev. Wolter, the author of three books on forgiveness. “I feel sick to my stomach because of the rage, the pain, the lack of any kind of closure.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/27/nyreg ... hogue.html
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Re: Racist Skinheads/Neo Nazi's that donate their souls.
If you posted all the news articles of Black gang member committing crimes, this site would be over its bandwidth in about a week.
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Re: Racist Skinheads/Neo Nazi's that donate their souls.
The thread is about those who donate their souls to the state. This particular thread is reserved for White Racist Groups. Hopefully a deterrent for young white kids/adults who is stupid enough to follow these convicted people. If your worried about tit for tat, then you've missed the whole message. Wake up and realize what's really important before it's to late for you too.
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Re: Racist Skinheads/Neo Nazi's that donate their souls.
So I guess it wouldn't be frowned upon if I made one for Black urban terrorist groups?Common Sense wrote:The thread is about those who donate their souls to the state. This particular thread is reserved for White Racist Groups. Hopefully a deterrent for young white kids/adults who is stupid enough to follow these convicted people. If your worried about tit for tat, then you've missed the whole message. Wake up and realize what's really important before it's to late for you too.
Re: Racist Skinheads/Neo Nazi's that donate their souls.
^you got the ins on it, BLOOD......