USDOJ Press Release: Indictments of New Mexicans on Hate Crimes Directed Against Navajo With Significant Cognitive Impairment

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For Immediate Release
November 12, 2010 United States Attorney's Office
District of New Mexico
Contact: (505) 346-7274

Three Farmington Men Indicted on Federal Hate Crime Charges Related to the Assault of Disabled Navajo Man

United States Attorney Kenneth J. Gonzales and Thomas E. Perez, Assistant Attorney General of the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice, announced that a federal grand jury in Albuquerque has indicted Paul Beebe, 27, William Hatch, 29, and Jesse Sanford, 25, all of Farmington, N.M., on federal hate crime charges related to a racially motivated assault of a 22-year-old man of Navajo descent who has a significant cognitive impairment.

Beebe, Hatch, and Sanford have been charged with one count of conspiracy and one count of violating the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act that was enacted in October 2009. More specifically, the indictment alleges that the defendants branded the victim by heating a wire hanger on a stove and burning the victim’s flesh, causing a permanent swastika-shaped scar on his arm. It is alleged that as part of the plan and purpose of their conspiracy, the defendants further defaced the victim’s body with white supremacist and anti-Native American symbols, including shaving a swastika in the back of the victim’s head and using marker to write the words “KKK” and “White Power” within the lines of the swastika. The indictment also alleges that the defendants took advantage of the victim’s developmental disability to induce him to make a cell phone video in which he purportedly consents to the branding.

This case is being investigated by the Albuquerque Division of the Federal Bureau Investigation in cooperation with the Farmington Police Department and the San Juan County District Attorney’s Office. It is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Roberto D. Ortega for the District of New Mexico and Special Litigation Counsel Gerard Hogan and Trial Attorney Fara Gold of the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice.

An indictment is merely an accusation, and the defendant is presumed innocent unless proven guilty.