Lee James Mouat, the white man who brutally beat a Black teen with a bike lock, has received a five-year sentence in federal prison.
Mouat’s fate was announced on Thursday after he initially pled guilty in March to willfully causing bodily injury to a victim. He admitted that the attack was racially motivated. In addition to the time behind bars, the 43-year-old received three years of supervised release.
Last June, Mouat attacked then-18-year-old Devin Freelon with the bike lock after confronting him and his friends about their music being too loud at the Sterling State Park in Detroit. Mouat spat several racial slurs during the confrontation and told the teens, “Ni**ers don’t belong on this beach.” The brutal beating left Freelon with a fractured jaw, lacerations to his mouth and face, and three of his teeth being knocked out. He has since undergone multiple dental operations.
“The cowardly and unprovoked attack on this young victim is terribly disturbing. Every individual citizen has the right to not live in fear of violence or attack based on the color of their skin,” stated Acting U.S. Attorney Saima Mohsin.
Special Agent in Charge Timothy Waters of the FBI Detroit Field Office said that combating hate crimes such as this is “one of the top priorities of the FBI.”
Mouat’s sentence is just half of the ten years that he was initially facing. He was also facing a $250,000 fine.
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