NORTH COAST, Calif. – A Santa Rosa man accused of assaulting two men last summer as part of hate crime motivated by his membership in a white supremacist gang pleaded to charges in the case on Wednesday.
Salvatore Ezio Bordessa, 33, pleaded no contest to two counts of assault with a deadly weapon, and admitted to personally inflicting great bodily injury on one victim, along with hate crime and gang allegations, according to Sonoma County District Attorney Jill Ravitch.
Bordessa additionally pleaded to a misdemeanor charge of preventing a witness from reporting a crime, according to Ravitch.
“This resolution underscores the fact that this kind of violence is intolerable. Gang members who commit violent hate crimes will continue to be aggressively prosecuted,” Ravitch said.
Bordessa’s co-defendant in the case, 27-year-old Aaron Joseph Welch of Clearlake, was sentenced in April to 15 years in state prison after having reached a plea agreement on two counts of assault with a deadly weapon, with enhancements being admitted, as Lake County News has reported.
The charges resulted from an assault that took place near the McDonald’s on Santa Rosa Avenue in South Santa Rosa on Aug. 26, 2012.
At 2 a.m. that day Bordessa and Welch – members of the white supremacist criminal street gang, the Barbarian Brotherhood – both wielded knives and assaulted two male victims, both of whom were black, according to prosecutors.
Welch stabbed one of the victims in the arm and leg, which required stitches to close each wound, officials said.
During the assault the defendants yelled racial slurs and “BBH,” which Ravitch’s office said are the common initials of the Barbarian Brotherhood.
The pleas are part of a negotiated disposition requiring Bordessa to serve a seven-year prison term, Ravitch reported.
Sentencing is set for Nov. 5 before the Honorable Gary Medvigy. Once sentenced, Bordessa must serve 85 percent of his term before being eligible for parole, according to prosecutors.
The case is being prosecuted by Deputy District Attorney Jason Riehl, assisted by District Attorney Investigator Denise Urton.
Sgt. John Cregan and Detective Kyle Philp of the Santa Rosa Police Department headed the investigation.