Man Sentenced to 5-Year Term in Racial Attacks

A 24-year-old man was sentenced in federal court Monday to nearly five years in prison for assaulting two African American men in separate attacks in 1996, a prosecutor said.

Danny Edward Williams, a member of a white supremacy gang, said in an earlier statement that he took part in the attacks to “rid the streets of Lancaster of African Americans.” Williams signed the statement in October when he pleaded guilty to federal civil rights charges.

U.S. District Judge Terry Hatter Jr. in Los Angeles sentenced Williams to 57 months in prison, giving Williams credit for more than a year of jail time already served. He also was ordered to pay about $500 in restitution to Marcus Cotton, who was hospitalized with stab wounds during one of the attacks.

During his prison stay, Williams is expected to undergo treatment to curtail his drug habit as well as psychological counseling.

Williams shouted racial slurs at Eric Miller of Los Angeles in April 1996, as Miller left a video store. Williams swung a bat at Miller and missed, but a juvenile accomplice then beat Miller with his fists. The pair then “drove away armed with the bat in search of African Americans . . . to assault or intimidate,” according to court records.