Brothers jailed for Donald Trump-inspired hate crime on homeless Mexican man
Republican presidential hopeful started election campaign by saying Mexicans are rapists who bring drugs to the USA
TWO brothers who said they were inspired by Donald Trump to pee on and beat up someone they thought was an illegal immigrant have been jailed.
Scott and Steven Leader kicked, punched and urinated on a Mexican homeless man outside a subway station before one of them hit him with an iron bar.
Both men then walked away laughing, witnesses said.
When they were arrested they told police: “Donald Trump was right: All these illegals need to be deported.”
The brothers, from South Boston, USA, pleaded guilty to causing bodily injury while committing a civil rights violation, assault and battery for purposes of intimidation causing bodily injury, two counts each of assault and battery, and two counts each of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon.
Scott, aged 38, was jailed for three years, and his 30-year-old brother received a two-and-a-half year sentence.
On the campaign trail last August Trump was asked to give his reaction to the attack in Boston, USA.
reports he just said: “I haven't heard about that. It would be a shame, but I haven't heard about that.
“I will say that people who are following me are very passionate.
“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.”
In a victim’s statement read out in court, the homeless man said he will never recover from what happened on August 19 last year.
He said: “I still feel pain all over my body from this incident.
“I don’t think my fingers will ever be the same.
“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 be beaten this way.”
Donald Trump has made the issue of immigration a big part of his campaign to be the next president of the USA.
In the speech where he announced he was running to be the Republican Party candidate he said: “When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best.
“They're sending people that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems with [them].
“They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”
Since that speech last June his proposals have included building a wall on the USA-Mexico border to stop Mexicans coming to the States.
He has also proposed a ban on Muslims being allowed to enter the country and wants to deport undocumented immigrants.