TRENTON, NJ—Two members of the Aryan Terror Brigade white supremacist group were sentenced to prison today for their roles in the New Year’s Eve 2011 hate crime assault of two Middle Eastern men in Sayreville, New Jersey, U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman announced.
U.S. District Judge Joel A. Pisano sentenced Michal Gunar, 29, of East Windsor, New Jersey, to 33 months in prison. Gunar previously pleaded guilty to an indictment charging him with conspiracy to commit a hate crime assault, as well as the actual commission of a hate crime assault, in violation of the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr., Hate Crimes Prevention Act. Judge Pisano sentenced Kyle Powell, 24, of West Collingswood, New Jersey, to 15 months in prison. Powell previously pleaded guilty to an information charging him with conspiracy to commit a hate crime assault.
According to documents filed in this case and statements made in Trenton federal court:
Gunar admitted attending a New Year’s Eve “meet and greet” white supremacist event at a residence in East Brunswick, New Jersey on December 31, 2011. That night, Gunar, Powell, and Christopher Ising, 31, of Waretown, New Jersey, drove to an apartment complex in Sayreville with the express purpose of assaulting random, non-Caucasian individuals. Gunar brandished a knife and attacked two Middle Eastern men, shouting anti-Arab slurs. At his guilty plea proceeding, Gunar admitted he assaulted at least one man by pulling the individual out of a parked car and punching the man about the face and head, causing physical injury.
Ising, a purported member of a white supremacist group known as the Atlantic City Skins, previously entered a guilty plea on both counts of the same indictment and charges as Gunar. He is scheduled to be sentenced on August 9, 2013.
U.S. Attorney Fishman credited special agents of the FBI, under the direction of Special Agent in Charge Aaron T. Ford; special agents of the U.S. Secret Service, under the direction of Special Agent in Charge James Mottola, Criminal Investigations, Newark Field Office; and detectives from the New Jersey State Attorney General’s Office, under the direction of Acting Attorney General John Jay Hoffman, with the investigation.
The government is represented by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Dennis C. Carletta of the U.S. Attorney’s Office National Security Unit in Newark, and Trial Attorney Fara Gold of the Criminal Section of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division in Washington.
