Pa. Teens Cleared of Serious Charges in Beating

Brandon Piekarsky is escorted into the Schuylkill County Courthouse in Pottsville, Pa., in this Aug. 18, 2008 file photo./Derrick Donchak walks into the Schuylkill County Courthouse in Pottsville, Pa., in this Aug. 18, 2008 file photo.

(AP Photos)

An all-white jury on Friday acquitted two Pennsylvania teenagers of all serious charges against them stemming from the fatal beating of an illegal Mexican immigrant last summer.

Brandon Piekarsky, 17, was acquitted of third-degree murder and ethnic intimidation, while Derrick Donchak, 19, was acquitted of aggravated assault and ethnic intimidation. Both were convicted of simple assault.

The defendants hugged each other after the verdicts were read, and friends and family members clapped and cheered, leading to a rebuke from the judge and sheriff's deputies.

After four days of often conflicting testimony, jurors were left to sort out the facts of an epithet-filled brawl that pitted popular football players against a 25-year-old Hispanic man who appeared willing to fight.

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Prosecutors cast Ramirez as the victim of a gang of drunken white teens motivated by their dislike of their small coal town's burgeoning Hispanic population. But the jury evidently sided with defense attorneys who called Ramirez the aggressor and characterized the brawl as a street fight that ended tragically.

Frederick Fanelli, Piekarsky's attorney, said he was "absolutely thrilled" with the verdict.

"This has been a long, long hard-fought case, highly charged obviously with all the media," he said. "It just couldn't be a better ending for us."

Schuylkill County District Attorney James Goodman said he was disappointed with the outcome.

"It was a very difficult case for a number of reasons. We presented the best case we could. We would have liked a better result," he said.

Goodman added there were "many problems with the evidence," but declined to go into specifics.

The case exposed ethnic tensions in Shenandoah, a blue-collar town of 5,000 that has lured Hispanic residents drawn by cheap housing and jobs in nearby factories and farm fields. Ramirez moved to the town about seven years ago from Iramuco, Mexico, working in a factory and picking strawberries and cherries.