Two members of the white-separatist National Alliance who are serving prison terms for their roles in a conspiracy to frighten minorities into staying off the streets of Salt Lake City will be free soon.
Under order of an appeals court, U.S. District Judge Dee Benson on Wednesday reluctantly imposed a new term of 37 months on Shaun A. Walker, a West Virginia man who had been the organization's national chairman. Walker, now 40, who originally was sentenced to 87 months, has about nine months remaining on his new sentence.
Travis D. Massey, 32, of Salt Lake City, who had served as a spokesman in Utah for the National Alliance, was originally ordered to spend 57 months behind bars. He now is slated to leave prison in two months, when he completes a 30-month term.
Walker made no comment at the resentencing. Massey said he feels remorse.
The two men and a third defendant, Eric G. Egbert, were convicted in April 2007 of conspiracy to interfere with civil rights and interference with a federally protected activity in connection with the attacks in Salt Lake City of two minority men.
According to a 2006 indictment, the three assaulted a Mexican-American bartender on Dec. 31, 2002, at O'Shucks, a Salt Lake City bar. The indictment also claimed Massey and another man attacked an American Indian man at the Port O'Call bar on March 15, 2003.
The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver ruled in April that Walker and Massey must be re-sentenced.
The appeals court said there was insufficient evidence supporting a factor considered in setting their punishment -- that a victim in a beating suffered "serious bodily injury as opposed to bodily injury." The Port O'Call victim was never located and the eyewitness testimony was not enough to show he would have required medical treatment, the 10th Circuit said.
The court also reversed a finding that Walker was a leader in the group, saying the case record did not show he exercised any more authority than any of the other members.
The 42-month sentence imposed on Egbert, of Salt Lake City, was not affected by the 10th Circuit ruling.
Prosecutor Stephen Curran urged Benson to impose the original sentences, saying they were reasonable considering the defendants' effort to "create a white living space here in Salt Lake City."
Benson said the two men have never taken responsibility for their actions and agreed the original punishment was appropriate. But, the judge said, he respects the 10th Circuit's ruling and felt he should impose prison terms within the range recommended under federal sentencing guidelines.
The one "unfairness" that remains is that Egbert was the least culpable defendant but now is serving the longest sentence, Benson said. With time off for good behavior, the 25-year-old is expected to be released in June 2010.
The white-separatist group complains of "out-of-control" immigration by nonwhites, an alleged Jewish monopoly of the mass media and political correctness in education. The organization was founded in 1974 by William Pierce, whose novel The Turner Diaries inspired acts of domestic terror, including the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, according to federal authorities.
