Man Convicted of Burning a Cross at Home of Blacks

After deliberating only 15 minutes, a jury in U.S. District Court in Santa Ana found 24-year-old Gary Skillman guilty Wednesday of burning a cross at the home of a black family in Westminster, an act described by the prosecutor as “racial terrorism.”

Skillman, who was charged with conspiracy, using fire to intimidate and violation of the civil rights of others, was convicted on all counts and faces up to 21 years in prison and a $600,000 fine. The charge of using fire to intimidate carries a minimum penalty of 1 year in prison.

“It was justice being served,” said Alvin Heisser, whose home in the Indian Village neighborhood of Westminster was the scene of the incident last July 28. “I am satisfied that justice has prevailed.”

While none of his family was physically injured when the 4-foot wooden cross was burned, Heisser said the pain and fear of the incident linger on.

“The whole family is still hurting,” Heisser said. “My wife is having a tough time every day.”

Assistant U.S. Atty. Thomas Umberg said the verdict shows that the federal government “will not tolerate” such racist demonstrations. The indictment against Skillman stated that he acted with another person, and Umberg said that the investigation is continuing and that another arrest is possible.

Assistant Public Defender Dean Steward argued that Skillman was simply a bystander who watched while the cross was being prepared, placed and burned. He claimed that a friend, Jeff Mayberry, was the mastermind.

Both Steward and Umberg noted that Mayberry, who has not been charged, could not be found.

Skillman twice told Westminster police that he was present when the cross was made in his garage from materials he owned, and he said he helped take the cross to the Heisser home--though he denied participating in the actual burning.

At the trial, the stepfather of a woman whom Skillman once dated testified that the defendant had told him that he intended to burn a cross and later boasted about having done so.

Several witnesses testified that Skillman was an open racist who frequently used racial epithets, urged extermination of minorities, mouthed white-power slogans, quoted Adolf Hitler and drew swastikas. A teen-ager, who said he was an ex-Skinhead, testified that Skillman, a former tattoo artist, has a “White Pride” tattoo on his forearm.

Both federal and Westminster law enforcement officials testified that white supremacist paraphernalia were found in Skillman’s Westminster home and on his person. One item seized was a dart board picturing a naked black man running and labeled with a racial epithet.

A U.S. Justice Department spokesman said that about 12 cross-burning prosecutions take place in the nation each year, but federal officials said it was the first in Orange County, adding that they could remember no other in the Los Angeles area.

In his argument to the jury, Umberg said Skillman had acted out “his perverted fantasies” in the “sordid crime.”

“(Skillman) can hate as much as he wants to hate. He can sit in his squalid world and hate and hate and hate. But once he leaves the bounds of speech and thought,” Umberg said, “once he manifests that hate by this act of terrorism, society has a right to protect itself.”

Steward, while acknowledging that the crime was “revolting,” accused the prosecution of trying to divert jurors from the facts with references to Skillman’s racist beliefs. He pointed out that Umberg, in closing remarks, used the word nigger eight times.

‘Ham Sandwich’

“The government has placed so much emotion in this case that if there were a ham sandwich sitting in Mr. Skillman’s chair, you would convict that ham sandwich,” Steward told the jury. The government presented ample evidence to demonstrate Skillman’s “radical beliefs,” but none that “he acted on those beliefs,” Steward declared.

An appeal is “guaranteed,” Steward said. The primary grounds will be a decision by U.S. District Judge J. Spencer Letts to allow references to Skinheads even though no evidence was produced to show that Skillman was one. In addition, Steward said, prosecutors surprised the defense with a witness whose identity was not disclosed until shortly before the trial began.

Several of the jurors said the verdict would have been the same without that witness. On their first vote during deliberations, sentiment for conviction was not unanimous. But after brief discussion, all agreed on a guilty verdict, juror Perry Behrens of Yucca Valley said.

“We just did what we did on what we had heard,” Behrens added.

6-Hour Trial

The trial lasted a little more than 6 hours.

The most moving testimony came from Heisser’s daughter, Kristie Quiroga, and his wife, Lilly. The mother said she had collapsed in tears when she saw the burning cross, and Quiroga wept on the witness stand when she described her lingering feelings of alienation and fear.

The father, Alvin Heisser, said his family has never had any trouble in the neighborhood before or since.

“He (Skillman) was the exception,” Heisser said. “The rule in our neighborhood is we’ve got a good neighborhood. We look out for each other.”

But Heisser said he expects the emotional scars to last.

“From a black person’s side of it, you’ll never get over it,” Heisser concluded. “If you live 100 years, you’ll never get over it.”