by Gustavo Martínez Contreras
SHENANDOAH, Pa.— The scheduled Jan. 24 sentencing of two local high school football stars following their federal convictions relating to the beating death of a 25 year-old immigrant worker from Mexico, runs a baffling path through the U.S. jurisprudence system and its application of “hate crime” law.
First tried in state court by an all-white Schuykill County jury in 2008, Brandon J. Piekarsky and Derrick M. Donchak were acquitted of racial intimidation charges.
Now both men face up to life in prison for violating the rights of Luis Ramírez Zavala following a different set of charges brought on by the U.S. Justice Department. Two years after the attack, a federal jury in Scranton, Pa., convicted these young Ramírez Zavala’s brutal beating.
They were accused of violating the criminal component of the federal Fair Housing Act, which makes it a crime to use a person’s race, national origin or ethnicity as a basis to interfere, with violence or threats of violence, with a person’s right to live where he or she chooses.
The jury also found that Donchak conspired to, and did in fact, obstruct justice.
On the night of July 12, 2008, Piekarsky and Donchak, then 16 and 18 years old, were among a group of six young men who confronted Ramírez Zavala and began screaming racial slurs, “Go back to Mexico” and “Tell your fucking Mexican friends to get the fuck out of Shenandoah.”
HIS BRAIN OOZED OUT
Ramírez Zavala was beaten, kicked and stomped on. An autopsy showed that his skull had a double fracture: one in the back of the head and another on the left side. His brain oozed out and swelled up, causing his basic functions to stop.
He was taken to Geisinger Regional Medical Center, where he died two days later due to his massive head injuries.
In the first trial, the allwhite jury found Piekarsky guilty of one count of simple assault, while Donchak was found guilty of one count of simple assault, three counts of corruption of minors and three counts of furnishing alcohol to minors.
The verdict outraged immigrants’ rights organizations as well as politicians, who pressured the U.S. Department of Justice to open a separate investigation.
It wasn’t until December 2009 that a fed- eral grand jury indicted both men on a hate crime charge, thus avoiding a finding of double jeopardy — the instance in which a person or group of persons are prosecuted twice for the same crime — that the defense sought to prove until the trial’s end.
In a 14-page opinion, Judge Richard Caputo wrote, “In the present case, the federal prosecution serves divergent interests for the state prosecution, including equal protection rights and the integrity of federal criminal investigations.
This Court is not the proper forum to reverse more than 80 years of Supreme Court precedent permitting subsequent prosecution by separate sovereign without violating the double jeopardy clause.” In opening statements, defense attorneys downplayed race as a factor in Ramírez Zavala’s death.
Both James Swetz and William Fetterhoff, who represented Piekarsky and Donchak, respectively, said the fatal beating was a product of factors other than ethnic hatred. “We’re talking about alcohol, youth and testosterone. Those are the themes in this case, not race, and certainly not federally guaranteed housing rights,” Swetz told the allwhite jury.
But testimony from Colin Walsh, a key witness, showed Donchak felt deep hatred toward Shenandoah’s growing Hispanic community. “Yes, he didn’t like Hispanics; he really didn’t like them,” Walsh, 19, said. “He called them fucking Mexicans, fucking spics.”
He also said that Donchak would listen to racist music, and specifically sing the song “White Man Marches On” while driving around with friends. The song is taken from the sound track for the movie American History X.
In his account of the attack, Walsh, who reached a plea agreement with federal prosecutors and is now awaiting sentencing, said that both Donchak and Piekarsky yelled racial slurs at Ramírez Zavala. “Derrick punched him in the face and called him ‘spic’, and Piekarsky yelled racist slurs. He was yelling at him, ‘fucking Mexican’.Later I heard him yell, ‘Tell your fucking Mexican friends to leave Shenandoah or you’ll be fucking lying next to them’ as we were leaving.”
Donchak is also charged with conspiring with some of his friends, their parents and members of the Shenandoah Police Department to obstruct the investigation of the fatal assault immediately after the beating.
Witnesses testified that Piekarsky told them not tell anyone he had kicked Ramírez Zavala in the head.
“I asked who kicked him,” witness Benjamin Lawson testified. “Brandon Piekarsky said, ‘I did, shh!’” The group began to make up the cover-up story they would tell police, Lawson recounted.
Another witness, Brian Scully, told the jury that Piekarsky arrived at the Donchak house with his mom as the teens talked about the fight. “We got to get a story. This is bad,” said Scully. “We thought if we had the same story it would be believable.” He added that Piekarsky cautioned him at least twice not to tell anybody he had kicked the deceased in the head. Former Shenandoah policemen Matthew Nestor, William Moyer and Jason Hayes face charges of conspiring to obstruct justice during the investigation.
The three of them, along with the Shenandoah Police Department, are standing trial this week in Wilkes-Barre, Pa.
A federal indictment charges them with conspiring to obstruct justice during the investigation into the fatal beating The federal investigation shed light also onto the wrongdoings of the Shenandoah Police Department. Matthew R. Nestor, William Moyer and Jason Hayes, three former policemen of that department, face federal charges for participation in the coverup of the crime. Just after Luis Ramírez’s death, many Latino residents expressed fear of the police. Those who spoke, under anonymity, told stories of abuse and intimidation done unto them or somebody they knew
FEDS INDICT POLICE
Even I, as a journalist, was denied information several times. “Nothing happened here,” then-Lieutenant Moyer told me once.
“We don’t have anything for you here.” As it turns out, they probably had plenty of information from everybody, and were hoping it would go away.
In a federal indictment, Nestor, Moyer and Hayes, who were chief, lieutenant and officer, respectively, along with the Shenandoah police department, are charged with conspiring to obstruct justice during the investigation into the fatal beating. Moyer has also been charged with witness and evidence tampering and lying to the FBI.
If convicted, the defendants face 20 years in prison on each of the obstruction charges and an additional five years in prison for conspiring to obstruct justice. Moyer faces an additionalfive years in prison for making false statements to the FBI.
Piekarsky and Donchak are being held at the Pike County Correctional Facility pending their Jan. 24 sentencing. Both face life in prison. Hispanic Link.
(Gustavo Martínez Contreras is a freelance writer and contributing columnist with Hispanic Link News Service. Email him at pasajero@gmail.com.)
