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Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Back issues
Courthouse News Service Courthouse News Service

Texans Could Get Life for Hate Crimes

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas (CN) - Two Texans are charged with luring a gay black man to an apartment where they tortured him for three hours.

The four-count federal grand jury indictment unsealed Friday accuses Jimmy Garza Jr., 32, and Ramiro Serrata Jr., 22, with conspiracy to commit hate crimes.

According to the indictment, they invited the man into a Corpus Christi apartment on March 8, 2012, then assaulted and tortured him for three hours.

While assaulting him with frying pans and other weapons, they poured a household chemical in his face and eyes, pistol whipped him and beat him with a belt, prosecutors say. Then they forced him to strip, made him clean up his own blood, and sodomized him with a broomstick, the U.S. Attorney's Office said.

He finally escaped by jumping through a window.

If convicted, Garza, of Corpus Christi, and Serrata, of Robstown, could be sentenced to life in prison.

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