BONEHEADS CLEARED IN MURDER OF DAN & SPIT

Hammerskin Ross Hack and his boy Leland Jones are free, and the only consolation that people have is that Ross’  sister Melissa is to be sentenced next week for her role in the 1998 murders of Anti-Racist Action members (L-R) Lin “Spit” Newborn and Dan Shersty.

Las Vegas Review Journal

Federal prosecutors argued that Ross Hack and Leland Jones got away with murder for 16 years.

On Thursday, a jury disagreed and set the men free.

Jurors acquitted Hack, 42, and Jones, 33, of all charges following a two-week trial in Las Vegas.

Afterward, Assistant Federal Public Defender Michael Kennedy said members of the Hack family “are just elated that this 16-year saga is over.”

Hack and Jones, who once associated with racist skinhead groups, were accused of helping plan and carry out the 1998 shooting deaths of two men who supported racial unity.

But defense lawyers argued that no physical evidence linked their clients to the killings, which occurred on federal land in northwest Las Vegas.

Kennedy acknowledged that Hack made mistakes as a young man, when he adopted the lifestyle of a neo-Nazi skinhead.

“But like many people, he went to college, earned a degree, learned about life,” Kennedy told the Review-Journal. “And he hasn’t been that man for many years.”

The defense lawyer said thanked jurors, who began deliberating around noon Tuesday, for taking the time to render a just verdict on the facts, “rather than simply base a decision on emotion.”

Jurors deliberated a full day Wednesday and announced that they had their verdicts shortly after returning to the federal courthouse Thursday morning.

Hack’s sister, Janessa Wilson, and brother, Shahn Hack, were in the courtroom with their mother and an aunt when the verdicts were read aloud.

Wilson and Shahn Hack testified for the defense during the trial.

Three people, including Ross Hack’s sister, Melissa Hack, admitted their involvement in the killings and testified for the government.

“They know the truth,” Kennedy said of the three government witnesses. “They didn’t tell it in this courtroom.”

Authorities have said Lin “Spit” Newborn, 25, and Daniel Shersty, 20, were killed because they were members of a skinhead group that opposed racial prejudice. Newborn was black, and Shersty was white.

“My heart goes out to the families of Mr. Shersty and Mr. Newborn,” Kennedy said. “And they now know that Ross Hack had nothing to do with it.”

Newborn worked at a body-piercing salon. Shersty, his friend, was an airman at Nellis Air Force Base, where he serviced fighter jets.

Attorney James Hartsell, who represents Jones, said he was pleased that jurors paid attention and carefully considered all the evidence.

“He’s always maintained his innocence,” the lawyer said. “It was always going to be a fight from the beginning.”

Hartsell said authorities had no interest in Jones, who worked as an electrician in Clark County, until John “Polar Bear” Butler began talking to federal investigators in 2011.

Jones was arrested the following year. Hartsell said Jones, who was 17 at the time of the murders, now has cleared his name in court.

“It’ll probably take him a little longer to clear his name in society,” the lawyer added.

Hartsell said Jones associated with older neo-Nazi skinheads during his younger years but does not consider himself a white supremacist.

“With him, it was never about race,” the lawyer said.

Butler, who once was president of the Independent Nazi Skins, was convicted of both murders in 2000 in Clark County District Court.

Hartsell said state prosecutors “got it right back in 2000,” when they declined to charge other suspects in the case.

Federal authorities later took over the cold case, and a federal grand jury indicted Ross Hack, Melissa Hack and Leland Jones in February 2012, the same month Mandie Abels secretly pleaded guilty in federal court to conspiracy to commit murder.

Butler, who is serving a life sentence with no possibility of parole, and Abels, who is serving a 15-year prison term, testified for the government at the federal murder trial.

Abels, Ross Hack’s former girlfriend, and Melissa Hack said they lured the victims to a remote desert site near Powerline Road and Centennial Parkway, where the two men were ambushed and fatally shot in the early morning hours of July 4, 1998. The victims were expecting to party.

Like Abels, Melissa Hack pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit murder. She is awaiting sentencing.

Trial attorneys with the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division prosecuted the federal case. They declined to comment as they left the courtroom Thursday.

Ross Hack and Jones each faced two counts of first-degree murder and two counts of using a firearm during a crime of violence.

Senior U.S. District Judge Philip Pro presided over the case.