Two brothers in Massachusetts were sentenced Monday to serve time in state prison after they admitted to urinating on and beating a homeless man while enraged over illegal immigration.
The brothers, 38-year-old Scott Leader and 30-year-old Steven Leader, believed the 58-year-old victim was in the country illegally, according to the Suffolk County District Attorney's Office.
"Donald Trump was right, all these illegals need to be deported," Scott Leader told police after the beating in August 2015, according to The Boston Globe.
The man, who was not identified, was in the country legally.
Just after midnight on Aug. 19, 2015, he was sleeping outside a bus station when he woke to the men urinating on him. In a victim statement read in court Monday, he said the Leader brothers swore at him and beat him "because I am Hispanic."
"I still feel pain all over my body from this incident. I don't think my fingers will ever be the same," he said. "I did not provoke the attack. I was asleep."
Prosecutors said the brothers laughed as they left the scene.
The victim suffered a broken nose, serious bruising across his torso and other injuries. The Leader brothers struck him multiple times. At one point, one of the brothers grabbed a metal pole and attacked with that.
"I cannot understand why they did this to me," he said. "I did not do anything to them and did not even know them … I have heard that they did this because of political rhetoric that they heard and because I am originally from Mexico. I came to this country many years ago and worked hard in the farm fields to provide produce to people here. I actually became a permanent resident of this country years ago, although if I had been undocumented, I still would not have deserved to have been beaten in this way."
The Leader brothers pleaded guilty to multiple charges, including causing bodily injury while committing a civil rights violation. Prosecutors recommended Scott Leader serve four to six years and that Steven Leader serve three to four years in state prison.
Suffolk Superior Court Judge Peter Krupp sentenced Scott Leader to three years and Steven Leader to 2 1/2 years in state prison, with both sentences followed by three years of probation.
"This unprovoked attack on a sleeping man disgusted every prosecutor, victim advocate and trooper who worked on it," Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel F. Conley said. "State prison was the only appropriate sentence."
The brothers' case made national headlines last year amid rising fears of violence spurred higher by contentious political rhetoric.
The attack came just months after Trump said a majority of Mexican immigrants are "rapists" and criminals.
Asked about the attack during a press conference in August, Trump said he was unfamiliar with the case but that "it would be a shame."
"I will say that people who are following me are very passionate," he added. "They love this country and they want this country to be great again. They are passionate. I will say that, and everybody here has reported it."
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