An Oregon man who was part of a white supremacist group pleaded guilty to a 2018 federal hate crime, the U.S. Department of Justice announced Tuesday. Randy Smith, 42, also pleaded guilty to making false statements to FBI agents.
Smith is the third person to plead guilty in the case after a grand jury indicted four men from across the Pacific Northwest in December 2020 after prosecutors say they left a white supremacy gathering and later violently attacked a Black man and injured others at a Lynnwood, Washington bar.
Federal hate crimes carry up to a 10-year prison sentence, while making false statements has up to a five-year sentence.
Last year, Daniel Delbert Dorson, 27, from Corvallis pleaded guilty to a federal hate crime and making a false statement. In April, Jason DeSimas, 48, from Tacoma pleaded guilty to the same charges. A fourth man, Jason Stanley, 46, from Boise, is set to go to trial this fall in Seattle.
During the early morning hours of Dec. 8, 2018, Smith, Dorson, DeSimas and allegedly Stanley physically assaulted a Black man, who in court documents is referred to by the initials “T.S.” The assault took place at a Lynnwood, Washington bar where “T.S.” was the DJ on a small stage near the bar’s dance floor.
The day before the attack, Smith and Dorson traveled together from Oregon. At the time of the assault, both were members of Crew 38, a white supremacy group that supports Hammerskin Nation, a white national group. DeSimas was a prospective member of the Hammerskins.
White supremacists had gathered for what’s known as “Martyr’s Day,” an annual event to honor Robert Jay Mathews, the founder of the violent white supremacists group the Order, which sought to create a white ethnostate. On Dec. 9, 1984, Mathews was killed on Whidbey Island, after a standoff with federal agents.
Just after midnight on Dec. 8, 2018, a group of 10 – including Smith, Dorson, DeSimas and Stanley – arrived at a nearby bar, having spent the evening at a gathering at the home of a Hammerskin who lived in Lynnwood.
“The majority of the men in the group were similarly dressed in dark jeans or pants, black boots, black ‘bomber’ jackets, dark-colored t-shirts, and had crew-cut hairstyles,” prosecutors stated in court documents. “Many in the group also had visible tattoos, including swastika tattoos, that expressed their views on white race superiority.”
Before entering the bar, Smith gave a Nazi salute, according to his plea agreement.
On the dance floor, the group was loud and aggressive. “DeSimas and several other members of the group saluted each other with outstretched arms with a salute that appeared identical to the Nazi salute multiple times while on the dance floor or walking around the bar, in front of ‘T.S.’” court records state. One person began manipulating T.S.’s DJ equipment, so T.S. move them away.
“Numerous members of the Crew 38/Hammerskin group, including Smith, then surrounded T.S. and began yelling racial slurs at T.S., including the racially derogatory ‘N’ word,” according to the plea agreement. “Smith knew that members of Crew 38 and the Hammerskins consider it disrespectful for a black [sic] man to touch a white man without permission, and for a black man to challenge conduct or acts by white men.”
T.S. cursed the group. Then, Dorson, punched T.S. DeSimas also called T.S. a racial slur before he too struck T.S. knocking him to the ground, court records state.
“Dorson continued kicking and stomping on T.S.,” according to Dorson’s plea agreement.
“Smith joined in the assault, and he repeatedly punched T.S. as T.S. was on the floor,” Smith’s plea agreement states. “Other members of the group also punched, kicked and/or stomped on T.S. with their boots” – all while the group continued to yell racial slurs.
Dorson’s plea agreement states he “knew and understood that the assault of T.S. by himself and others, including Smith, DeSimas, and Stanley, was because of T.S.’s race as a Black man.”
T.S. was injured. Two other men, who tried to help T.S., were also injured by the group of white supremacists. Court documents state the men who came to T.S.’s aid identify as persons of color.
Shortly after the assault, Smith, Dorson and the other white supremacists left the bar and were pulled over by police. That evening, Smith wore a ring with a Nazi symbol. When he was arrested, Smith had blood on his knuckles.
Days later, Smith voluntarily agreed to be interviewed by FBI agents, even though he understood he was a subject of a hate crimes investigation. According to the plea agreement, he denied remembering that he and others used racial slurs during the assault.
“Smith told the FBI agents that he did not remember the racial slurs that he and others used before, during, and after the assault because Smith wanted to cover up the motive for the assault, which was the bias that he and the group had against T.S.’s race,” the plea agreement states.
Smith, Dorson and DeSimas are set to be sentenced later this year.