Jury Says Punk Rocker Misidentified in Hate Crime Case

A jury acquitted a Los Alamitos punk rock fan Friday of participating in a 1995 attack by skinheads on an Asian American man, prompting emotional cheers from the defendant’s friends and family in the courtroom.

“It’s been a total nightmare for me; it’s been devastating,” Chad Salisbury said afterward. “I was looking at eight years for something I didn’t do.”

Several jurors told attorneys they believed an eyewitness misidentified the 28-year-old motorcycle mechanic as being involved in the beating of Mark Sanjay David outside a chaotic punk rock club in Orange, where Salisbury and two friends had gone.

The lack of any blood on Salisbury after the beating was also key, they said. An expert had testified Salisbury would have been splattered with blood if he had beaten the victim as described.

A previous jury convicted Salisbury of assault with a deadly weapon and a hate crime. But Superior Court Judge John J. Ryan overturned that verdict in September, agreeing with Salisbury’s new attorney that jurors in the first trial were unaware of significant information, including the fact that the alleged racist was Jewish.

The judge told jurors on Friday he believed they had “corrected a mistake,” while defense attorney Michael J. Sheldon said “justice was done.”

Deputy Dist. Atty. Tom Glazier said jurors conscientiously considered all the evidence, telling them: “You held us to our burden; that’s fine.”

“I’m sure it wasn’t an easy case for them to hear,” he said.

Salisbury had contended from the beginning that he did not take part in the beating and was not a racist. He spent eight months in jail after his arrest before making bail.

He testified in his own defense during the second trial. The defense, for the first time, also hired nationally known hate-crime expert Brian Levin, who disputed prosecution claims that Salisbury’s tattooed arms and attire marked him as a racist skinhead.

“They’re basically just punk rock tattoos,” Salisbury said, adding later that the prosecutor “made up my character to suit his purpose.”

Levin also disputed prosecution evidence that Salisbury was involved in a local racist skinhead gang and said he believed the jury made the right decision.

“I’d been convinced after reviewing the facts that this was an innocent man,” said Levin, who had never been hired as a defense expert before Salisbury’s case. “We have to make sure that in our desire to rid our communities of hate, which we all want to do, we have to make sure individual rights of the innocent are protected.”

Levin said he hoped the acquittal will put the “guilty person” in the brutal beating on notice. “These prosecutors have done a very good job in the past bringing haters to justice, and I have every confidence that the DA’s office will bring this hatemonger to justice,” he said.

No other arrests have been made so far in the beating.

The victim, whose parents are from India, was beaten unconscious in the unprovoked attack. He was hospitalized in intensive care for several days with a broken nose, a fractured skull and other injuries. He could not be reached for comment Friday.