THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, March 9, 1995 TAG: 9503090424
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JON FRANK, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: HAMPTON LENGTH: Short : 44 lines
A 19-year-old who authorities believe is a member of a Peninsula ``skinhead'' group was sentenced Wednesday to two years in prison for defacing a predominately black church in July.
Ryan Maziarka of the 1400 block of Oakcrest Drive was convicted in January of spray-painting racial and religious slurs on the New Bethel Cathedral on Harris Creek Road.
On Wednesday, Circuit Judge Nelson T. Overton sentenced Maziarka to five years but suspended three of them.
Maziarka is likely to serve his two years in the Hampton City Jail, said Jeffrey W. Shaw, assistant commonwealth's attorney.
Shaw said Maziarka will be eligible for parole because the offense occurred before Virginia's new no-parole law took effect.
Shaw said Maziarka committed the vandalism with two companions, one of them a juvenile.
His adult companion will not be prosecuted, Shaw said, because Maziarka would not testify against him.
``Ryan Maziarka is not going to cooperate in the prosecution of a fellow skinhead,'' Shaw said.
Shaw could not comment on the juvenile's punishment because of the defendant's age.
Maziarka never admitted to being a skinhead, Shaw said, but prosecutors believe he belongs to the neo-Nazi movement, which promotes hate crimes against minorities.
Maziarka's stiff sentence thrilled Samuel K. Kaplan, director of the Virginia and North Carolina office of the Anti-Defamation League, based in Norfolk.
``The conviction of Ray Maziarka for the spray-painting of a church sends a loud and clear message that hate crimes and acts of ethnic intimidation will not be tolerated in our community,'' Kaplan said.
KEYWORDS: HATE CRIMES SENTENCING VANDALISM JUVENILE by CNB