A Michigan man will serve 5 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to federal hate crimes charges for hitting a Black teen with a bike lock
A Michigan man faces five years in prison after he pleaded guilty for hate crime charges.
Lee Mouat, 43, admitted to confronting a group of Black teens at a public beach last June.
Court documents said Mouat struck one of the teens in the face wtih a bike lock, knocking out his teeth.
A Michigan man was sentenced to five years in prison for a federal hate crime after he attacked a Black teenager, the Department of Justice announced Friday.
Lee Mouat, 43, admitted to confronting a group of Black teenagers at the parking lot of a public beach in Monroe, Michigan, last year. He repeatedly used racial slurs and said Black people "don't belong at this beach" and "Black lives don't matter," according to a report by The Daily Beast.
He then struck one of the teens, 18-year-old Devin Freelon, Jr., in the face with a bike lock, knocking out several of his teeth, lacerating his face and mouth, and fracturing his jaw. The Beast reported that Mouat continued to kick Freelon in the face until he was unconscious, and attempted to attack another one of the teens before being stopped by the police.
"The defendant brutally attacked teenagers at a public beach because these young people are Black," Kristen Clarke, who serves as the assistant attorney general for the DOJ's Civil Rights Division, said in a statement. "Hate-fueled violent crimes like this have no place in our communities. Protecting Americans from hate crimes is a top priority of the Justice Department and we will use every tool available to bring perpetrators to justice."
Mouat pleaded guilty on March 4 to two federal hate crime charges. He was sentenced to 60 months in prison and three years of supervised release, according to the press release.
After media outlets began to report on the incident last June, Dr. Nawras Najor, a Michigan-based dentist, offered the teen about $15,000 dollars of free dental work and temporarily fixed his teeth before Freelon's graduation.
"It was a little shocking because three teeth out of the mouth from trauma," Najor told FOX2 at the time. "That's a lot, that's a huge force on the face. As a dentist, I see trauma - it's horrible - but as a father, that's what makes me really upset."
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