One of two suspects accused of using a knife and shouting white supremacist slogans while beating a black man in Pioneer Park pleaded guilty in a plea bargain last week that could put him behind bars for eight years.
The two suspects, Jonathan Rhodes and Joseph Krueger, and their attorneys were both involved in a lengthy bargaining session with District Attorney Jay Boyarski on Sept. 6, but neither accepted a deal.
But in a hearing the next morning, Rhodes, 18, pleaded guilty, after Boyarski dropped the charges of making criminal threats and false imprisonment.
Rhodes also pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor battery charge for beating Robert Hall Barnes, a white man who confronted the suspects during an argument they were having with Rhodes’ girlfriend. After the Sept. 6 offer, public defender Gary Goodman needed time to discuss the deal with Rhodes and his family, Boyarski said.
Krueger’s lawyer, private attorney Patrick H. Kelly, seemed more hesitant, and is expected to consider the matter further before a Sept. 25 hearing. Krueger, 21, will be given the same deal by Boyarski, but faces an additional year in prison for actually holding the knife. Both are charged with assault with a deadly weapon, which is worth four years in prison. The hate crime enhancement is also worth four years.
On the record, Boyarski stated that although no fingerprints were found on the knife, several witnesses saw it being used in the incident. He said that it’s common not to find fingerprints on a weapon, and that the witness accounts make it still relevant to the case.
Witnesses claim that Rhodes and Krueger beat a 19-year-old black man while shouting white supremacists slogans such as “white power” and doing Nazi salutes. In the police report, the victim recalls one of the men saying, “I’ll kill you. … We got people to come down here and kill you. Put you in a casket.”
Nazi paraphernalia was later found in the suspects’ homes, but no allegations have been made that the two are in a white supremacist group. Rhodes and Krueger are from Ceres, near Modesto, but were in Mountain View doing construction work on Oak Street.
Both suspects are still being held in lieu of $1 million bail.
E-mail Daniel DeBolt at ddebolt@mv-voice.com
