Today closes a chapter on one of the more notorious cases of hate crime in our region.
U.S. Attorney Vega said. According to Assistant U.S. Attorney Amalia Meza, who handled the government's prosecution along with Department of Justice Civil Rights attorneys, a 1997 indictment and jury trial in June 1998, charged this defendant with helping other Marines, who were part of an elite swat team known as the Special Reaction Section, to cover up their assault on undocumented migrant farmworkers. Specifically, defendant provided a false alibi for the Marines to investigators in the aftermath of the assault in 1994. As a result of his false alibi, investigators with the Naval Investigative Service closed the investigation. At trial, the Government presented evidence that the Marines targeted the migrants because they believed they could get away with the attack since migrants would not report the crime for fear of deportation.