Idaho Men Charged with Hate Crime Says It wasn’t Racially Motivated

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — A defense attorney for one of two men charged with committing a federal hate crime told jurors Tuesday that the fight that led to the charge was simply a barroom brawl, not a racially motivated attack.

The trial of Beau E. Hansen and Jonathan L. Henery began in Idaho's U.S. District Court this week. Prosecutors say the two men, who are both white, yelled racial slurs while they assaulted a black man at a Boise strip club.

The Idaho Statesman reports that Hansen's attorney Thomas Dominick said his client might be guilty of battery but nothing more. Derrick Lewis, the black man, told jurors he was looking for a lost piece of his cellphone headset when the other two men attacked him on October 20, 2013.