2 Men Are Charged With Hate Crimes

Hate crime charges have been filed against two men who prosecutors believe were prompted by the terrorist attacks on the East Coast, the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office said Friday.

Authorities said both cases involve defendants who allegedly threatened victims they believed were Middle Eastern.

These are the first such hate crime filings in Los Angeles since the Sept. 11 attacks, officials said.

Both men face felony charges of making criminal threats, along with special hate crime allegations.

Prosecutors say Nikolai Delevante was driving near Wilshire Boulevard and Fairfax Avenue on Sept. 12 when he got into an argument with another driver. He yelled racial threats at the driver and his passenger, both Iranian men, prosecutors said. The men told authorities that they saw the driver waving a gun.

Delevante, 25, pleaded not guilty to three counts: making a criminal threat, violating civil rights and exhibiting a firearm. He was taken into custody but was released on bail. If convicted, Delevante could face six years and 10 months in state prison. His preliminary hearing is scheduled for Nov. 19.

In the second case, James Scott Yungkans is accused of going into a gas station in Bellflower on Sept. 21 and asking the attendant where he was from. When the man said he came from Jerusalem, Yungkans, 38, allegedly vowed to bomb Israel and blow up the attendant.

He left and returned with an ammunition canister with the word “mortar shells” printed on the side, prosecutors said. The victim and other witnesses fled the gas station.

Yungkans faces one charge of making a criminal threat, with the hate crime enhancement. He pleaded not guilty and is being held in Los Angeles County Jail in lieu of $70,000 bail. He could face up to six years in state prison if convicted. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for Oct. 15.

Neither Delevante nor Yungkans could be reached for comment Friday.

Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Sgt. Katherine Voyer said she appreciates the district attorney’s office filing charges in both cases. “The whole goal is to get those people into the court system and have them pay for what they’ve done,” said Voyer, who heads the department’s hate crimes unit.

The district attorney’s hate crimes unit is investigating as many as 10 other incidents that could have been influenced by the attacks, and has referred two misdemeanor cases to the Los Angeles city attorney’s office.

“Clearly with regard to attacks on Middle Eastern individuals, or people perceived to be Middle Eastern or of the Muslim faith, incidents are up,” said Scott Millington, who heads the district attorney’s hate crimes unit.

The Sheriff’s Department is looking into 30 cases of reported hate crimes or incidents that may have been motivated by the terrorism, Voyer said.

Prosecutors are working with local law enforcement on several incidents possibly related to the attacks. Those include the slaying of a San Gabriel grocer from Egypt, a fire that destroyed an Afghan restaurant in Encino and gunfire at an Antelope Valley convenience store owned by a Syrian American.

Sheriff’s detectives said Friday that they are still searching for three suspects in the death of 48-year-old Adel Karas, shot in his store Sept. 15. Local authorities believe the Coptic Christian grocer was killed during a confrontation in the store, but the FBI is investigating the case as a hate crime. Karas’ family believes that he was mistaken for a Muslim and that the murder was motivated by hate.

Sheriff Lee Baca and other authorities held a news conference Friday to ask for the public’s help in solving the case.

The FBI has 11 possible hate crime cases open in the Los Angeles division, which includes seven Southern California counties.

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Times staff writer Richard Winton contributed to this report.