Four teenagers were arrested on hate-crime charges in a firebombing on Long Island that left a Mexican immigrant family homeless.
“This is a crime born out of hatred,” District Attorney Thomas Spota said Thursday. It was alleged to be the second racially tinged attack in the neighborhood in the past few years. In 2000, two Mexican day laborers who lived next door were lured to a warehouse with a promise of work, then beaten. Two men were sentenced to 25 years to life in prison for attempted murder. The Farmingville house was set ablaze July 5 when someone in a passing vehicle threw a flaming object through a window. Sergio Perez, 33; his companion, Maria Garcia, 23; two children, ages 1 and 5; and Perez’s 27-year-old brother escaped after neighbors shouted and pounded on their door. Full Story