Teen Guilty of Hate Crime in Stabbing

A La Palma teenager was convicted of attempted murder, conspiracy and hate crime charges Monday for his role in a near-fatal stabbing of a Native American man last year near the Huntington Beach pier.

Michael Steven Eckert, 18, faces a maximum of nearly 14 years in prison when he is sentenced March 28 in Orange County Superior Court.

Eckert, a self-described white supremacist who has tattoos of swastikas and other racist markings, was 17 at the time of the attack but was tried as an adult.

George Mondragon, who was slashed nearly 30 times with a large hunting knife, almost died after the incident but has since recovered.

Authorities say the attack occurred in the early-morning hours of Feb. 3, 1996, when Eckert and three others approached 20 year-old Mondragon and two friends at a lifeguard tower and asked if they believed in “white power.”

When Mondragon began running, prosecutors alleged Eckert punched the victim and held him down while another man did the stabbing. The attack was so frenzied that the alleged stabber, Erik Anderson, mistakenly stabbed Eckert in the eye with the knife, authorities say.

A bleeding Eckert was found by police staggering down Main Street. The victim’s two friends, who are white, were not injured.

Eckert admitted punching Mondragon but denied knowing his friend had a knife that night or that he intended to use it, his lawyer said.

Shortly before the stabbing, authorities said, Eckert and his friends had verbally accosted other minorities at the pier.

The jury acquitted Eckert of hate crime charges for threatening to push one person off the pier, and rejected an allegation that the attack on Mondragon was premeditated.

Erik Anderson, the alleged stabber and a self-described member of the Ku Klux Klan, is awaiting trial on similar charges. Another co-defendant awaits sentencing for her role in the attack, while a third was sentenced to 16 months in prison for retrieving the knife used in the stabbing.