Skinhead Sentenced for Attacking 2 Black Men

A onetime member of the Nazi Low Riders was sentenced to three years in federal prison Monday for attacking two African Americans in Lancaster.

Eric Dillard, now 18, apologized for his actions, which included the beating and stabbing of a black teenager out for a walk three years ago.

At a sentencing hearing before Chief U.S. District Judge Terry J. Hatter Jr., Dillard’s lawyer portrayed her client as a battered boy desperate for a surrogate family when he fell in with the skinhead group.

“Every single man in his life had beaten him,” Deputy Public Defender Mary Kelly said. She asked the judge to sentence him to a long period of supervised probation and require him to tell his story to other young people.

A probation report prepared after Dillard pleaded guilty last year to violating federal hate crime laws recommended 6 1/2 years in prison.

Assistant U.S. Atty. Caroline Witcoff argued Monday that a stiff sentence was warranted despite Dillard’s youth because of the severity of the attacks. She said it would send a message to other youths that racially motivated attacks will not be tolerated.

Hatter drew on the arguments of both sides in reaching his decision. Recalling his earlier years as a Juvenile Court judge, he chided politicians who believe that the answer to juvenile crime is trying and punishing children as adults. “Trying them as adults doesn’t make them adults,” he said. But, he added later, “children must be punished, too.”

Citing Dillard’s age and inexperience at the time of the offenses, Hatter sentenced him to three years in prison and three years of supervised release afterward. Dillard also was ordered to make $3,045 restitution to his victims.

Two others were convicted and sentenced previously in the attacks. Danny Edward Williams, 25, who reportedly befriended Dillard and recruited him into the skinhead group, is serving a 57-month federal prison term. The other defendant, who has not been identified, was tried as a juvenile.