No federal hate crime charges in torture case
Woman held, abused for a week was not a random target, prosecutor says
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No hate crime charges in torture case
Sept. 12: Federal prosecutors say they will not seek hate crime charges against six people charged with the abduction, assault and torture of a West Virginia woman. NBC's Pete Williams reports.
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Updated: 4:14 p.m. ET Sept 12, 2007
BIG CREEK, W.Va. - Six white suspects accused of torturing a young black woman for days in West Virginia will not face federal hate crime charges, Justice Department officials told NBC News on Wednesday.

At one point, an assailant cut the woman’s ankle with a knife and used the N-word in telling her she was victimized because she is black, according to the criminal complaints.

The Justice Department said it will defer to West Virginia in prosecuting the six suspects.

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Logan County Prosecutor Brian Abraham said his office would pursue other charges first because they carry stiffer penalties. West Virginia’s hate crime law carries a sentence of up to 10 years.

Also Wednesday, Abraham said the woman, who allegedly was sexually assaulted and forced to eat rat droppings, was not a random target.

One of the six suspects arrested in the case, Bobby Brewster, had a previous relationship with the victim, Abraham said. He said Brewster had been charged in July with domestic battery and assault after a domestic dispute involving the same woman.

“She obviously had some sort of social relationship,” Abraham said. “That is based on the fact that she was present at his residence on a prior date.”

If true, that evidence would undercut the hate crime law, which applies to crimes motivated by racial hatred and not by non-race-related conflicts.

Grisly details
Megan Williams, 20, was found beaten and bruised at Brewster’s mother’s home in rural Big Creek on Saturday.

MSNBC.com generally does not identify suspected victims of sexual assault, but Williams and her mother agreed to release her name. Carmen Williams, Megan William's mother, said she wanted people to know what her daughter had endured.


According to criminal complaints, Megan Williams, 20, was detained and assaulted for about a week.
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According to the criminal complaints, Williams’ captors, all of them white, choked her with a cable cord and stabbed her in the leg while calling her a racial slur, poured hot water over her, made her drink from a toilet and made her eat dog feces and rat droppings.

She was also beaten and sexually assaulted during a span of about a week, according to the complaints.

It wasn’t until an anonymous tip led Logan County Sheriff’s deputies to the property on Saturday that her ordeal ended. She limped toward the deputies, her arms outstretched as she cried, “Help me!”

“I didn’t know there were people like that out here,” Carmen Williams said Tuesday from her daughter’s hospital room.

Previous arrest records
Police tape now surrounds the entrances to the beige-and-brown mobile home. An extension cord runs from the home to a cramped shed where authorities believe Megan Williams was held with a portable stereo, a locker and a power saw.

The suspects in the case have previous arrest records going back several years, according to records from Logan County Magistrate Court, and Abraham said he had “some familiarity with all those individuals.”

Since 1991, police have filed 108 criminal charges against the six.

Brewster’s mother, Frankie Brewster, 49, faced the most serious charges among them. She was charged in 1994 with first-degree murder, but pleaded guilty to lesser charges of manslaughter and wanton endangerment. She was released from prison in 2000 after serving five years in the death of 84-year-old Polly T. Ferrell, court records show.

Six in custody
In Williams’ case, Frankie Brewster is charged with kidnapping, sexual assault, malicious wounding and giving false information during a felony investigation.

Bobby Brewster, 24, also of Big Creek, is charged with kidnapping, sexual assault, malicious wounding and assault during the commission of a felony.

Danny J. Combs, 20, of Harts, is charged with sexual assault and malicious wounding.

Karen Burton, 46, of Chapmanville was charged with malicious wounding, battery and assault during the commission of a felony.

Burton’s daughter, Alisha Burton, 23, and George A. Messer, 27, both of Chapmanville, are charged with assault during the commission of a felony and battery. She previously faced charges of assault during the commission of a felony and battery; in May, she was accused of striking Messer with a shovel and smashing the window of a woman’s car. The charges are pending.

All six remained in custody Wednesday in lieu of $100,000 bail each.

Public Defender Dwyane Adkins, appointed to represent Bobby Brewster, declined to comment on the case. The other defendants’ court-appointed lawyers were either in hearings or did not immediately return telephone calls Wednesday.

The home at Big Creek is quiet now. Newborn pups sleep in the entryway to the small shed, their mother protectively barking at approaching strangers.

Megan Williams, her right arm in a cast, may be well enough to leave the hospital within a few days, her mother said.

“I just want my daughter to be well and recover,” Carmen Williams said. “I know the Lord can do anything.”

this was NOT a hate crime
you have got to be kidding me
I am so pissed

It makes me wonder if the victim was white, would the outcome still be the same? not that I'd let those insane people loose to do it again tho. But I do feel for the woman, nobody should have to go thru what she did, and so far she seems to be taking it well.

Where is the justice in the World???????????????? How can they say this wasn't a HATE CRIME?????????? What else could they possibly think it was??????????? I am outraged about this. What has happened to our society? What makes people do this horrible things to other human beings??????????

OMG....that is insane!!

Since 1991, police have filed 108 criminal charges against the six

Why are they even out walking the street...that is an average of 18 previous criminal charges against each assailant! What happened to 3 strikes your out....or the other repeat offender laws!

you know this world is just gone mad

it seems you can do whatever you want to people and it's ok
I don't get it....

I take back what I posted earlier, it was hard for me to tell what was part of the article and what as advertising. Apparently she was kidnapped because she was black. *still has flame sheild up*

If they prosecute them on all the charges that have been filed and convict them on all of them, then sentence them to the max for each charge to run concurrently they will be away for life anyway. Just because the Feds don't pursue hate crimes against them now does not mean that charges can't be filed in the future if the state prosecution goes haywire. If they cut a plea bargin to spitting on the sidewalk and disorderly conduct, then the Feds can always come in and hit them with the hate crime thing. Might be a shrewed move on the Feds part. As Casey said "it ain't over till its over".

Garden Forge it a matter of princple that this crime be on record that it is a hate crime. A hate crime is Federal offense. Even if the punisment is so servere the the criminals serve the maximum sentence allowed but not on the record as a Federal crime then it's still an injustic.

In the article it said the hate crime thing was negated because the girl was one of the guy's girlfriend at one time, which makes the motive other than a simple racial thing. Makes sense in its way.

Those guys are evil and cruel, that is hatred enough without making a race issue out of it.Seems to me it was a horrible crime and they should be punished accordingly.

Fitness you really like to stir up the filth don't you. Go find some more of the worst things you can find that have happened in our society and post them here so we can read them too. We never get enough of reading about the worst of our society. This is a behavior I usually would attribute to an a-ss. Surely this is an exception in your case though because you felt some personal attachment to the issue, and felt the need to have us all read about it and consider our own racial tolerance so we could compare ourselves to these criminals and condemn them as they deserve. I'll overlook it this time.

You might see from my tone that I am a little tired of people dragging out the race card whenever there is a crime between white and black or black and white. Crime is crime. When you label it as a race crime it promotes more racial intolerance, which in my opinion we do not need.

Philly please re-read the article it doesn't say the she was a girlfriend nessarily though it does suggest that, instead it say that she was present at the domestic dispute.

i dont agree with the term hate crime as only white people cna do it, however i believe they should have a new category called "torture crime" that should b applied to stuff like this honestly it makes my skin crawl that people can do stuff like this and that they can label it a hate crime due to the ethnicities and that every time i think that white people in america might b improving they do something like this. In fact im sick of humanity and scum who hurt people damn the ethnicities need to put in places like guantanamo not suspected terrorists

i thought we were in the 21st century
i guess somehow we went back to the 19th century

lizardking19,

I agree with you completely! Does anyone think that if they had done this to a white woman, that they would have hated her any less? Many crimes are driven by hate, not just the ones where the perp is white and the victim is black.

this is a hate crime....

but in Virginia they only give 10 yrs max for crimes of hate

the prosecutors are charging them with the more serious (there words, not mine) aspects of the crime
ex: torture, rape, etc...

I think a hate crime is if you hurt or attack someone because you HATE them
color of skin shouldn't matter

It is a slippery slope when you start charging people with crimes of thought. I say we charge them with the actual crime they commited and leave judging their hearts to God.

TLW some go back much farther than the 19th century, these guys never got out of the cave and by saying that I realize that I have insulted cavemen everywhere.

and cavewomen

Im not even going to start on god with u spider but yeah ur right The phrase hate crime refers to a state of mind, rather orwellian i think

Spider, Hate crimes are called hate crimes because the motive to comitt the crime is not a socially reasonable nor acceptible.
The are factors in court that either midagate or aggravate the penalities for the crime. Killing some one may not be consider 1st degree murder, there are midagating factor to be considered; the the defendant did it while drunk, did the defendant do it in a planned event, could this be a crime of passion?

The motive for a hate crime is based on not wherther the victim did anything to offend the defendant. The motive could just be as random as being in the wrong race, in the wrong place, and the wrong time. That why it's consider a hate crime and should have speacial penalities in court.