TWO TEENS GUILTY OF FEDERAL HATE CRIME IN PENNSYLVANIA

This is not 1955. That was the year that a 14-year-old African American named Emmet Till was brutally murdered by two white men that said he whistled at a white woman. Those two white men were cleared of all charges a few months later. But this is not 1955. You can’t pull the crap they pulled back then and expect to emerge unscathed. If Brandon Piekarsky and Derrick Donchak thought that they could brutally beat a Hispanic man to death and expect nothing more than a simple assault conviction, they were rudely awakened from that dream Friday as they were found guilty of federal hate crimes in a Scranton, PA courtroom. This verdict was two years coming. Luis Ramirez was killed by Piekarsky, Donchak and three others, all white, high school jocks in Shenadoah, PA that were championed by the anti-immigration crew in Pennsylvania, who are known for just letting the hatemongering and racism flow free amongst them. Now they are in mourning, crying because they are realizing that this is not 1955. Next is not only the sentencing for Piekarsky and Donchak, but also the trial of the Shenandoah police officers who learned the hard way that this is not 1955 when they were charged with conspiring to obstruct justice after the feds investigated the original trial and found some funny business. Mojado CItizen provides this great article about the conviction and what’s next. We don’t think the anti-immigration crowd is going to like it. After all, this is not 1955.

Mojado Citizen

Crystal Dillman woke up Friday with a feeling so long ago missing in her that it was almost surreal.

“I finally feel relief,” she said. “This is justice for me, my children and Luis.”

After more than two years, an all-white federal jury in Scranton, Pa., convicted Brandon Piekarsky and Derrick Donchak of a hate crime arising out of the fatal beating of Luis Eduardo Ramirez Zavala, an undocumented immigrant.

The jury found the defendants from Shenandoah, Pa., guilty of violating the criminal component of the federal Fair Housing Act, which makes it a crime to use a person’s race, national origin or ethnicity as a basis to interfere, with violence or threats of violence, with a person’s right to live where he chooses to live.

In addition, the jury found that Donchak conspired to, and did in fact, obstruct justice.

The jury took 6 1/2 hours Thursday to come out with a verdict, each of these hours filled with tension and uncertainty. For the first time the defendants’ semblance seemed to grow gloomy, after days in which they appeared more relaxed, more at peace.

But when the jury read the verdict of guilty as charged, both men trembled and sobbed for the first time in public. The first one to learn his fate was Mr. Piekarsky, charged only with one count; he took his hands to his face and started crying while Mr. Donchak’s legs started shaking as he bowed his head looking straight to the floor.

He soon heard the jury say guilty, guilty, guilty of all three charges pending against him.

Judge Richard A. Caputo ordered both men to be detained.

“The two are to remained detained pending sentencing to happen on January 24, 2011,” the judge said.

Mr. Donchak and Mr. Piekarsky face sentences of up to life in prison on the hate crime charge. In addition, Mr. Donchak faces up to 20 years in prison on the obstruction charge and five years on the conspiracy charge.

Both men also face plus the $250,000 fine and $100 special assessment.

“The fight’s not over,” James A. Swetz, Mr. Piekarsky’s lawyer, said after the verdict.

“We will file an appeal at its proper time, which is after the sentence,” William A. Fetterhoff, Mr. Donchak’s lawyer, said as he was leaving the courthouse.

But for Ms. Dillman this chapter seems to be finally over. She had no longer to sit alone and silent, at times holding a photograph of her with Mr. Ramírez Zavala and her, at times crying; at times shaking her leg in restlessness; she had no longer to sit a listen over and over the way her fiancée was insulted, punched, kicked and killed the night of July 12, 2008.

“Being there those days was hard but I had to do it for Luis,” she said.

Distant in time and memory was the day last year in which an all-white Schuykill county jury acquitted the two teens charged with ethnic intimidation and aggravated assault.

This latest verdict prompted the National Council of La Raza to issue a statement.

“Today’s verdict shows that hate crimes won’t go unpunished,” read the statement. “Many civil rights organization have alerted of the increasing wave of intolerance across the country through the toxic tone surrounding the immigration debate, and Luis Ramirez’ case is clear example of the serious and tragic consequences the rhetoric of hate has.”

But Ms. Dillman’s quest for justice is far from over. Coming January she will be back in a federal court, this time for trial of the three former Shenandoah police officers charged with conspiring to obstruct justice during the investigation into the fatal beating of Mr. Ramirez Zavala. Mr. Moyer has also been charged with witness and evidence tampering, and with lying to the FBI.

In Ms. Dillman’s view, this verdict is not enought to change things in Shenandoha, from where she has moved since.

“All I can say is I pray it changes things for the better,” she said. “But I’m not sure it will happen.”