ATLANTA — Two men have been sentenced to 10 years in federal prison for their involvement in a hate crime against a gay man in Atlanta.
Nineteen-year-old Christopher Cain and 20-year-old Dorian Moragne were sentenced earlier this week for the Feb. 4, 2012 beating of Brandon White.
It was the first time federal prosecutors have filed hate crime charges based on sexual orientation in Georgia.
Officials said White, then 20 years-old, was walking out of a store in Atlanta’s Pittsburgh neighborhood when he became the target of an unprovoked beating. The attack was videotaped and posted on the website WorldStarHipHop.com with the headline, “Dead Wrong: Man Wearing Skinny Jeans Gets Sucker Attacked & G’z Throw a Tire On Him for Being Gay.”
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White, who is openly gay, came forward after the video went viral on the internet — he said he didn’t report the incident to police because the video of his beating by gang members was “embarrassing and humiliating.”
Video here (Warning: graphic content).
The federal sentences, handed down on Wednesday, will run concurrently with five-year state prison sentences the men received last year.
A third man, Darael Williams, was also sentenced to serve five years in state prison.
