4th defendant pleads guilty in racist attack

A fourth member of white supremacist groups who assaulted a Black man pleaded guilty to hate crime.

A fourth member of white supremacist groups who assaulted a Black man after a gathering on Whidbey Island in 2018 pleaded guilty to hate crime and false statement charges in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, the U.S. Justice Department reported.

The white supremacists were on Whidbey Island for “Martyr’s Day,” an annual gathering honoring a white supremacist who died in a shootout with federal agents in Greenbank in the 1980s.

Jason Stanley, a 46-year-old Idaho man, pleaded guilty to committing a hate crime for his participation in the assault of T.S., a Black man, which occurred because of the man’s actual and perceived race at a bar in Lynnwood on Dec. 8, 2018, the Justice Department reported. Three other white supremacists earlier pled guilty for their roles in this assault.

“The defendants in this case came to Washington state to commemorate their hateful embrace of white supremacy,” said U.S. Attorney Nick Brown for the Western District of Washington. “But they did not find the welcoming environment they expected. The victim in this case, and those who defended him from the assault, demonstrated one of our core values in Western Washington: Hate has no place here.”

In addition to the hate crime charge, Stanley pleaded guilty to making false statements to FBI agents about the circumstances surrounding the assault.

Stanley will be sentenced on Jan. 6, 2023.