http://www.idahostatesman.com/2015/01/29/3616959/hate-crime-trial-to-begin-monday.html
Early one morning in October 2013, a black man identified in court documents as "D.L." entered the Torch 2 club on Vista Avenue to retrieve a piece of a cellphone headset he believed he had left there.
His brief visit left him with impaired vision and other substantial injuries after he was allegedly attacked by two men who yelled racial slurs while pummeling him.
On Monday, Jonathan Lynn Henery, 29, and Beau Edward Hansen, 31, will go to trial in federal court in Boise on charges of committing a hate crime based on race and color.
According to court documents, their victim suffered cuts, bruises and swelling, and fully lost his vision for some time after the Oct. 20 incident. His eyesight has not fully recovered.
As described by prosecutors, D.L. entered the club at 1 a.m. and headed toward the DJ booth at the back of the building. One of the defendants seated at a nearby couch called to D.L. using a racial slur, prosecutors claim, and Hansen then approached D.L. at the booth and told D.L. the club was "theirs," referring to Henery and several of their friends.
Hansen allegedly told the man he was a member of the gang Severely Violent Criminals, a group named in a 2012 lawsuit filed by state prisoners as one of the gangs that operated the so-called Gladiator School of violence at the Idaho Correctional Center south of Boise. At the time, the prison was operated by Corrections Corporation of America, which prisoners claimed worked with SVC and other prison gangs to control the facility.
Prosecutors say Hansen told D.L. he was not welcome in the club and had to leave. Hansen struck a bouncer who tried to intervene, then he and Henery both shouted racial slurs before hitting D.L. in the face, federal officials say.
Both defendants repeatedly punched D.L. and continued yelling the slurs, and several women who had accompanied the men to the club joined in, prosecutors claim.
D.L. ended up on a couch in a fetal position and attempted to shield his face as the men and their associates continued to beat him.
Two bouncers and the DJ tried to intervene, but they were also struck, prosecutors say.
They say Hansen and Henery stopped fighting only after one of the bouncers retrieved a stun gun he kept at the bar for emergencies and used it on the defendants. Enraged, Hansen overturned a table before leaving.
After having words with the bartender, Henery spit in her eye and yelled an obscenity, and Henery and Hansen continued to yell racial slurs and the name of their gang as they walked out, according to documents.
JUST OUT OF PRISON
The group had gone to the club to celebrate Henery's wedding, a day after he was released from prison.
Federal prosecutors intend to introduce video footage from the club's surveillance system that reportedly shows Hansen approaching and accosting the victim, the bouncer's attempt to intervene and the attack itself.
The government also plans to introduce a letter Hansen wrote eight years ago while he was in prison to a former lover and mother of his child. Hansen wrote that it was "disgusting" that she was dating a black man and carrying that man's child "because white women should not be with black men."
Both defendants, who have long criminal records, including convictions for battery, malicious injury to property and resisting, deny that they are racists.
They have each pleaded not guilty. If convicted, they face up to 10 years each in prison. The trial is expected to last two weeks.
Severely Violent Criminals began as a middle school rap group in Pocatello, according to the website Idahogangs.com, which tracks Idaho gangs. Around 2000, the group developed into a prison gang when Henery - who founded the band - organized a group of inmates he met at the St. Anthony Juvenile Detention Center.
While he does not deny his membership in SVC, Henery said his involvement in a gang is irrelevant and highly prejudicial.
Chief U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill, however, ruled that the actions of the two defendants concerning their gang affiliation is "inextricably intertwined with the critical events relating to the charges here" and would be allowed as evidence.
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Early one morning in October 2013, a black man identified in court documents as "D.L." entered the Torch 2 club on Vista Avenue to retrieve a piece of a cellphone headset he believed he had left there.
His brief visit left him with impaired vision and other substantial injuries after he was allegedly attacked by two men who yelled racial slurs while pummeling him.
On Monday, Jonathan Lynn Henery, 29, and Beau Edward Hansen, 31, will go to trial in federal court in Boise on charges of committing a hate crime based on race and color.
According to court documents, their victim suffered cuts, bruises and swelling, and fully lost his vision for some time after the Oct. 20 incident. His eyesight has not fully recovered.
As described by prosecutors, D.L. entered the club at 1 a.m. and headed toward the DJ booth at the back of the building. One of the defendants seated at a nearby couch called to D.L. using a racial slur, prosecutors claim, and Hansen then approached D.L. at the booth and told D.L. the club was "theirs," referring to Henery and several of their friends.
Hansen allegedly told the man he was a member of the gang Severely Violent Criminals, a group named in a 2012 lawsuit filed by state prisoners as one of the gangs that operated the so-called Gladiator School of violence at the Idaho Correctional Center south of Boise. At the time, the prison was operated by Corrections Corporation of America, which prisoners claimed worked with SVC and other prison gangs to control the facility.
Prosecutors say Hansen told D.L. he was not welcome in the club and had to leave. Hansen struck a bouncer who tried to intervene, then he and Henery both shouted racial slurs before hitting D.L. in the face, federal officials say.
Both defendants repeatedly punched D.L. and continued yelling the slurs, and several women who had accompanied the men to the club joined in, prosecutors claim.
D.L. ended up on a couch in a fetal position and attempted to shield his face as the men and their associates continued to beat him.
Two bouncers and the DJ tried to intervene, but they were also struck, prosecutors say.
They say Hansen and Henery stopped fighting only after one of the bouncers retrieved a stun gun he kept at the bar for emergencies and used it on the defendants. Enraged, Hansen overturned a table before leaving.
After having words with the bartender, Henery spit in her eye and yelled an obscenity, and Henery and Hansen continued to yell racial slurs and the name of their gang as they walked out, according to documents.
JUST OUT OF PRISON
The group had gone to the club to celebrate Henery's wedding, a day after he was released from prison.
Federal prosecutors intend to introduce video footage from the club's surveillance system that reportedly shows Hansen approaching and accosting the victim, the bouncer's attempt to intervene and the attack itself.
The government also plans to introduce a letter Hansen wrote eight years ago while he was in prison to a former lover and mother of his child. Hansen wrote that it was "disgusting" that she was dating a black man and carrying that man's child "because white women should not be with black men."
Both defendants, who have long criminal records, including convictions for battery, malicious injury to property and resisting, deny that they are racists.
They have each pleaded not guilty. If convicted, they face up to 10 years each in prison. The trial is expected to last two weeks.
Severely Violent Criminals began as a middle school rap group in Pocatello, according to the website Idahogangs.com, which tracks Idaho gangs. Around 2000, the group developed into a prison gang when Henery - who founded the band - organized a group of inmates he met at the St. Anthony Juvenile Detention Center.
While he does not deny his membership in SVC, Henery said his involvement in a gang is irrelevant and highly prejudicial.
Chief U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill, however, ruled that the actions of the two defendants concerning their gang affiliation is "inextricably intertwined with the critical events relating to the charges here" and would be allowed as evidence.
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