HOT SPRINGS — Two more men were given prison sentences on Monday for their roles in a plot to run a white woman and her biracial children out of a small town by burning a cross in her yard.
After hearing family and friends describe Jacob A. Wingo, 20, as being racially tolerant and involved in the lives of biracial children, a judge imposed a two-year prison term and $10,000 in fines.
Clayton D. Morrison, 30, was sentenced to 15 months in prison and ordered to pay$5,000 in fines.
Both received harsher penalties than Dustin I. Nix, who was the first to plead guilty in the case and was sentenced in November to a year and a day in prison.
All three men are to serve three years of supervised release when freed from prison.
The final two defendants are to be sentenced today.
All five previously pleaded guilty to civil rights offenses in the June 2008 crime in the mostly white town of Donaldson.
Wingo, Morrison and Nix erected a makeshift wooden cross in Loretta Marie Slaughter-Shirah’s yard after an evening of drinking, court records say.
She was new to the Hot Spring County town in southwest Arkansas, and she lived in a modest home with her three young children, who have black fathers.
Several days before the cross burning, all of the men except Morrison talked about targeting Slaughter-Shirah because she “associated with niggers,” court records say.
She moved out of the home, and a few days later it burned to the ground. The house fire was ruled arson and is still under investigation.
Slaughter-Shirah did not attend Monday’s hearings and the house fire was not addressed before U.S. District Judge Robert T. Dawson.
Wingo’s federal public defender, Lisa G. Peters, gave an emotional plea for leniency.
Peters, who is black, told the judge she has gotten to know Wingo, and that he has “wonderful qualities.”
“He’s never been disrespectful to me as an African-American attorney,” she said.
Peters also asked the judge to consider the fact that the cross never became “consumed” by flames, but rather just “smoldered” because it apparently wasn’t fully saturated with an accelerant.
Dawson repeatedly said he was concerned about the impact this crime would have on Slaughter-Shirah’s three children, who at the time were 5 years, 18 months and 4 months old.
Peters also raised concerns about the fact that authorities knew about an additional suspect but the person was never indicted. The person - who is not named in court records - helped fashion the cross so it would stick in the ground, Peters noted.
Attorneys with the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division did not comment on that issue.
Morrison’s court-appointed attorney, Travis J. Morrissey, described his client as being less involved than the other men.
Morrison was not present during the initial conversation about targeting Slaughter-Shirah and only got involved after a night of drinking at a party, the attorney told the judge.
However, both Morrison and Wingo were indicted on the same charges of conspiring to intimidate, criminal interference with the right to fair housing and making false statements to authorities.
The remaining two suspects, Darren McKim, 39, and Richard Robins, 43, are awaiting sentencing on charges of conspiring to intimidate and making false statements.
Arkansas, Pages 9 on 12/08/2009