Judge to release men awaiting trial

A U.S. District magistrate judge said he will order the release of two men while the await trial on charges they engaged in racially motivated beatings in downtown Salt Lake.

Meanwhile, reaction by both white supremacists and hate-group watchdogs alike to the arrest of a third man — the leader of a national white supremacist organization — began to surface over the weekend.

The Anti-Defamation League hailed the arrest last Thursday of Shaun Walker, the relatively new leader of the National Alliance, as a victory against white-supremacist organizations.

The National Alliance's founder William Pierce, who was best known for authoring "The Turner Diaries" which Timothy McVeigh used as a blueprint for the Oklahoma City bombing, died in 2002. Since then, Walker, who grew up in Salt Lake City, has taken control of the struggling organization.

Walker, along with Utah residents Travis Massey and Eric Egbert, were indicted on hate-crime charges stemming from the December 2002 beating of a Mexican-American man outside O'Shucks and the beating of a Native American man outside Port O'Call in March 2003 in Salt Lake City. Massey is also the Utah head for the National Alliance.

In court Tuesday, U.S. Magistrate Judge Samuel Alba ordered the release of Egbert and on Wednesday did the same for Massey, finding there was no indication the men were a threat to the community or a flight risk.

Alba did indicate he planned to keep both men on a "short leash", ordering them to have no contact with gangs or "racially motivated" groups such as the National Alliance. The men are also ordered to have no contact with witnesses or victims in the case.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Carlos Esqueda argued the men were members of a notoriously violent white-supremacist organization. The National Alliance has been blamed for 22 bank robberies, a shoot-out with police in Illinois and one member was arrested for manufacturing pipe bombs, Esqueda said. The group also espouses the overthrow of the federal government and the systematic extermination of Jews and non-white people.

Alba noted that Massey had no adult criminal history and that Egbert, although convicted for an assault with a knife and beer bottle, had managed to steer clear of violating the law since the assaults in 2002 and 2003.