Trial is scheduled to begin today for a guy accused of attacking two Latinos at a Costa Mesa 7-Eleven without provocation in March, allegedly yelling “Fucking Mexicans” as he punched a 42-year-old man and his 26-year-old nephew.
Chad Martin Jurjaks, 30, of Costa Mesa, faces up to seven years and four months in a state prison cell if convicted.
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Jurjaks, who is Caucasian, has a record and police believe was drunk at the time of the incident, is fighting two
felony counts of hate-crime battery causing injury, with a sentencing
enhancement for a prior strike conviction for
criminal threats in 2006.
According to the Orange County District Attorney's office:
“Hate-crime laws prohibit the use or threat of
force by any individual in
order to intimidate, interfere with, oppress or threaten any other
person from exercising any right secured by the U.S. Constitution or
state or federal laws based on 'race, color, religion, ancestry,
national origin, sexual orientation, gender or disability.'”
Previous coverage:
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.