COLUMBIA, S.C. — Two men in South Carolina have been prosecuted on government disdain wrongdoing accuses in association of thefts focusing on Hispanic clients outside service stations and a Mexican supermarket.
Charles Antonio Clippard, 26, and Michael Joseph Knox, 28, are blamed for effectively taking money, cellphones and, in one example, a vehicle subsequent to following customers to their homes and holding them at gunpoint in 2021, as per a government fantastic jury prosecution gave Monday. The Columbia-region men deliberately picked casualties they distinguished as Mexican or Hispanic, the U.S. Branch of Equity said in a news discharge.
South Carolina is one of two states in the country without regulations that permit more extreme disciplines for rough can’t stand wrongdoings. The other is Wyoming. The 2015 bigoted slaughter of nine Dark individuals from the Emanuel AME church in Charleston has energized the push to add a state-level disdain wrongdoings regulation in South Carolina, however some conservative state legislators have more than once slowed down the proposition.
Clippard and Knox were each prosecuted on three counts of disdain wrongdoings, three counts of guns offenses, one count of carjacking and one count of scheme. The guns offenses require at least 21 years in jail. Each disdain wrongdoing energize conveys to 10 years in jail, and the carjacking energize to 15 years.
The Related Press left telephone messages with the lawyers addressing the respondents. Government agents in Columbia are investigating the situation close by the Richland Region Sheriff’s Specialization and nearby police.
