Two men have pleaded guilty to federal hate crimes for a racially motivated assault in New Mexico that included branding a developmentally disabled man of Navajo descent with a swastika, the Justice Department has announced.
Paul Beebe and Jesse Sanford of Farmington, N.M., entered their guilty pleas Thursday. A third defendant, William Hatch of Fruitland, N.M., pleaded guilty in June to conspiracy to commit a federal hate crime stemming from the same incident.
The three men were indicted by a federal grand jury in November 2010 on one count of conspiracy and one count of violating the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act. They were the first to be charged under the October 2009 law that expanded the reach of federal anti-hate measures.
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