New Jersey Neo-Nazis Arrested in Assaults on Middle Easterners
Federal authorities in New Jersey are ending 2012 with the arrests of two accused white supremacists who allegedly went on a hate-filled assault spree last New Year’s Eve.
Christopher Ising, 31, a reported member of the Atlantic City Skins from Waretown, N.J., was arrested today by FBI agents on an indictment charging him with conspiracy and commission of a hate crime assault. Those laws are contained in the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, passed by Congress in 2009.
Michal Gunar, 27, of East Windsor, N.J., also faces the same federal charges. He is an alleged member of another New Jersey-based white supremacist group known as the Aryan Terror Brigade, the FBI said in announcing the arrests.
The arrests grew out of a New Year’s Eve party last year in East Brunswick, N.J., where Ising hosted a “meet and greet” gathering for white supremacists, FBI officials said.
A half hour before the New Year rang in, Ising and Gunar drove to an apartment complex in Sayreville, N.J., “with the express purpose of assaulting random, non-Caucasian individuals,” court documents allege.
“While at the complex, the defendants located and attacked three Middle Eastern men, shouting anti-Arab slurs, brandishing a knife, utilizing brass knuckles, and injuring two of the victims,” the documents say.
Further details were not provided about the victims’ identities or the extent of their injuries.
If convicted in U.S. District Court, the two defendants face substantial prison terms, depending in part on their prior criminal records, which haven’t yet been publicly disclosed.
