An Ohio man pleaded guilty Tuesday to a federal hate crime after beating up a black man he did not know in the street earlier this year, the Cincinnati Enquirer reports.
On May 18 in Toledo, Ohio, Robert Paschalis and co-defendant Charles Butler drove past the victim in a GMC truck decorated with a small Confederate-flag sticker. The pair then circled back before attacking the man while yelling racial slurs, court documents indicate.
Butler, 34, pleaded guilty to the charges Nov. 9.
The two men were captured on surveillance footage from a nearby restaurant beating the unidentified victim for over a minute. During the attack, Butler could be seen pulling a broom from the back of the truck and hitting the victim multiple times.
The pair only stopped the attack when two off-duty Ohio public-safety officers stopped them.
Paschalis admitted during his plea that he attacked the victim because of his race, the Department of Justice reported. Butler posted about the attack on Facebook.
"All in the name of the White Race," Butler, a self-identified white supremacist, wrote, according to court documents. "My battle wounds will heal, but I've lived to fight another day."
The victim was hospitalized with an orbital fracture and damage to his right eye.
“Hate violence harms individuals and threatens the diversity of entire communities,” Vanita Gupta, principal deputy assistant attorney general, said of the latest developments in the case. “This vicious attack on an African-American man simply going about the routines of daily life offends human decency. We cannot undo the harms inflicted, but these convictions help vindicate everyone’s right to live free from racial violence.”
Both convicts are scheduled to be sentenced in February.
Read more at USA Today.