Mexico’s top official in Boston on Friday condemned an attack earlier in the week on a 58-year-old Mexican citizen who two Massachusetts brothers urinated on and then beat because he appeared to be a homeless undocumented immigrant.
The brothers, 38-year-old Scott Leader and 30-year-old Steve Leader, were arrested and ordered held without bail on Wednesday while they await trial on charges including assault and battery, for the purpose of intimidation because of national origin.
“We condemn this attack,” said Daniel Hernandez Joseph, the consul general of Mexico in Boston. “It is doubtlessly a horrible incident, a horrible attack and I am sure and I trust that the authorities will take all appropriate legal action.”
The men told police they targeted their victim because they believed he was an undocumented immigrant. According to a police report, they told arresting officers, “Donald Trump was right, all these illegals need to be deported.”
Trump, the New York real estate developer and former reality TV star, has catapulted to the front of the pack of candidates seeking the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, driven in part by promises to deport all undocumented immigrants and order the construction of a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Trump told reporters in New Hampshire that he had not heard of the attack but that he regarded it as a “shame.”
The men began their attack shortly after midnight Wednesday by urinating on the victim’s face while he was asleep at an above-ground subway station, pulling him from his sleeping bag and beating him with a metal pole.
The victim, whose name has not been released, was treated for a broken nose, serious bruising and other injuries at Boston Medical Center, where he is still receiving treatment, said hospital spokeswoman Ellen Slingsby. He asked that information on his condition not be released, she said.
The man told consular officials that he was a Mexican citizen who had been granted permanent legal residency in the United States, Hernandez Joseph said, adding that the consul had confirmed his Mexican citizenship but not yet his residency.
Consular officials will be giving him legal assistance, he added.
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“These allegations are sickening,” said Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel Conley. “Several witnesses stepped up, contacted police and gave full statements when they witnessed a vicious, unprovoked crime. They did the right thing.”
Not guilty pleas were entered on the brothers’ behalf.
(Reporting by Scott Malone; Editing by Lisa Lambert)