Sentencing Set For Coram Man Convicted of Hate Crime in Port Jefferson Station

Suffolk County District Attorney Thomas Spota announced that a Coram man who was convicted last month of a violent hate crime against a mentally disabled man at a bus stop at Cherub Lane and Route 112 in Port Jefferson Station will be sentenced in a Riverhead court on Friday.

On June 10, 2010 Brian Karris, 36, punched Joseph King, who was 46-years-old at the time, in the face then “twice stomped on the unconscious victim’s head,” according to a statement released by the district attorney’s office.

Police detectives arrested Karris 12 days after the attack.

“The victim was in a coma for a week and hospitalized for several months with multiple skull fractures,” the district attorney said in a statement,

The judge in his trial found Karris not guilty of assault in the first degree, not guilty of attempted robbery in the first degree but determined he was guilty of assault in the second degree as a hate crime.

In his statement, Spota said that Karris targeted King because he is African-American and has an intellectual disability.

“The defendant admitted to police both a resentment of African Americans, and that he was ‘messin’ with (the victim) ‘cause I knew he was a retard,’” he said.

The district attorney will recommend Karris get the maximum punishment of 15 years in a state correctional facility.