Hate Crime Victim to Get Nearly $5 Million in Damages

FRESNO, Calif. — A former Fresno State student beaten by a white supremacist during a fraternity party will receive nearly $5 million for his injuries.

Malcolm Boyd, a black student whose 1997 beating touched off a period of racial discord that intensified during a Ku Klux Klan rally at the university, now lives with his mother in Southern California. He suffered brain damage and remains partially blind as a result of being hit in the head with a pipe, said his lawyer, Jacob Weisberg.

The Kappa Sigma fraternity, which hosted the party where the attack took place, settled Boyd’s civil lawsuit Wednesday, agreeing to pay $1.35 million. Co-defendants San Mar Property Management and CBS Security previously settled for $650,000 and $250,000, respectively.

Boyd’s portion of those settlements will be placed into a fund from which he will receive monthly payments. The eventual total, with interest, will be about $5 million, Weisberg said.

Boyd, 28, was a semester away from a degree in business law when the attack took place.

He was in a coma for several months after the attack.

He had to relearn how to talk and walk, and still has a limp. He has numbness throughout his right side and deals with bouts of depression.

Jerry Joseph Hamilton, 23, a member of a white supremacist gang, pleaded no contest in 1998 to beating Boyd and another man and is serving a 26-year prison sentence.

Boyd, who has accumulated more than $1 million in medical bills, filed the civil suit in November 1998.

Within days of the attack, residents of Fresno and Boyd’s hometown of Long Beach began holding vigils and rallies against hate crimes. Within a month, the Ku Klux Klan began circulating literature around Fresno State.

Shortly after, the school’s Academic Senate passed an anti-racism resolution. Weeks later, the Klan responded with a rally at the university.