Five whites imprisoned in racial attack on Marine

SAN DIEGO -- Five white men who broke a black Marine's neck and left him paralyzed during a drunken, racist attack at a party were sentenced yesterday to prison terms ranging from one to nine years.

Four of the men pleaded guilty to assault in the beating last May of Lance Cpl. Carlos Colbert, 21. The fifth man, 20-year-old Jesse Lawson, pleaded guilty to assault and the commission of a hate crime and received the harshest sentence after acknowledging that race was his motive.

Sitting in his wheelchair, Colbert rejected an apology from his attackers.

"I don't blame y'all for what you did because y'all were taught" to hate, said Colbert, who has trouble speaking because of his injuries. "But you're apologizing because you got caught. You don't care about me."

Judge Frederic Link sentenced Lawson to nine years. Trenton Solis, 18, Robert Rio, 23, Jed Jones, 21, and Steven Newark III, 18, received one year in prison and five years on probation.

Colbert was one of a few blacks who attended a Memorial Day party at the home of a fellow Marine from Camp Pendleton. At least 100 people packed the small house at Santee, 20 miles from San Diego.

A fight broke out in the front yard, and the attackers punched and kicked Colbert while shouting racial slurs and "White power!" prosecutor Craig Rooten said.

Rooten said Colbert wanted the case to go to trial, but there were no streetlights to illuminate the fight, "there were a lot of people involved, and there was a lot of alcohol involved, making it a difficult case to sort out."

Colbert's memory of the attack was that a fellow Marine went outside to help a woman who was hit by a "skinhead." He said he heard the commotion, went outside to see what was happening and got jumped.

The parents of some of the attackers recently went on a radio talk show, saying their sons were coerced into confessing that the crime was racially motivated. They said it really was just a drunken brawl.

Photo by The Associated Press

Marine Lance Cpl. Carlos Colbert is attended to by a hospital employee in November in Long Beach, Calif., after he was beaten by five white men who shouted racial slurs during an attack in a San Diego suburb in May. Colbert is paralyzed from a broken neck.