Santa FE, NM – Two New Mexico men have been sentenced to prison for branding a swastika on the arm of a developmentally disabled Navajo man.
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Federal prosecutors say 27-year-old Paul Beebe and 25-year-old Jesse Sanford, of Farmington, entered Alford pleas in July to federal hate crime charges. Under the plea, a defendant acknowledges there is enough evidence for a conviction but does not admit guilt.
Beebe was sentenced Wednesday to 8 1/2 years in prison followed by three years’ supervised release. Sanford was sentenced to five years in prison followed by three years’ supervised release.
A third defendant has yet to be sentenced after pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit a federal hate crime.
The 22-year-old victim had a swastika branded on his arm with a metal coat hanger in April 2010.
This is NOT an anti-Semitic incident. The swastika is an ancient Navajo symbol that has been in their culture for hundreds if not thousands of years. I forget what it means in their culture, but it is a harmless symbol to them. This was a crime of brutality and bullying, not a racist crime.
I am horrified at the cruelty & brutality of this act. These thugs got off lightly. THEY need to be branded…concentration camp numbers belonging to Holocaust victims would be an appropriate punishment so they remember 6 million victims every single day for the rest of their miserable lives..