Tancredo staffer pleads guilty to hate crime

For years, conservative writer and activist Marcus Epstein has worked with the mainstream of the immigration restrictionist movement. He wrote speeches for former Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., during his presidential bid, and he’s still working as the executive director of Tancredo’s Team America PAC, alongside Bay Buchanan.

Epstein has been targeted for years by civil rights groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center and the One People’s Project, who have obtained Epstein’s guilty plea to a hate crime he committed two years ago.

From the U.S. Attorney’s factual proffer:

On July 7, 2007, at approximately 7:15 p.m. at Jefferson and M Street, Northwest, in Washington, D.C., defendant was walking down the street making offensive remarks when he encountered the complainant, Ms. [REDACTED], who is African-American. The defendant uttered, “Nigger,” as he delivered a karate chop to Ms. [REDACTED]’s head.

Epstein has pled guilty and will be sentenced on July 8, although he changed his plea to water down an admission of guilt into the belief that “the government could prove me guilty.” A spokesman for Team America PAC confirmed that Epstein is still at work until he leaves for law school in the fall, and an official statement is forthcoming.

Ironically, Tancredo has taken a large public role, telling multiple cable news outlets, that Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor “appears to be a racist” and the civil rights group La Raza is a “Latino KKK without the hoods or the nooses.”

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