Woman gets 15-year federal prison term in skinhead murder case

Insisting she was not an “evil, bad person,” an emotional Melissa Hack begged for leniency Monday for her role in the 1998 slayings of two members of an anti-racist group.

“Please don’t hate me,” the remorseful Hack told Senior U.S. District Judge Philip Pro. “From the bottom of my heart, I’m sorry.”

Pro responded, “I don’t hate you. I hate the crime that was committed. It was horrible.”

In his 34 years on the federal bench, Pro said, he has rarely seen a case with such an “evil, heinous plan.”

Then, he sentenced Hack to 15 years in prison, the sentence federal prosecutors had sought.

Defense lawyer Brent Bryson asked for 10 years behind bars because of Hack’s extensive assistance to prosecutors, which included testifying against her brother.

Pro, however, said Monday’s proceeding was not about Hack but rather the two victims of the July 1998 hate-crime killings — Lin Newborn, 25, and Daniel Shersty, 21.

“Nothing that you say will change their fate,” he said.

Hack, 39, who was associated with racist skinhead groups at the time of the killings, pleaded guilty in May to conspiracy to murder and agreed to cooperate against her brother, Ross Hack, 42, and another defendant, Leland Jones, 33.

But following a two-week trial, a federal jury acquitted Hack and Jones in September despite his sister’s testimony. Defense lawyers argued there was no physical evidence linking their clients to the shooting deaths.

Pro told Hack he was impressed with her testimony at trial, which he said had to be difficult because of the pressure she faced from her family. Hack also withstood tough cross-examination from defense lawyers to tell what she insisted was the truth.

Patricia Sumner, a trial lawyer with the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division in Washington, also praised the help Hack provided prosecutors in the case.

Pro said he believed Hack was serious about wanting to become a productive member of the community after prison but added, “You’re never going to get away from this. It’s going to be with you until you die.”

And he said he feared that whatever sentence he handed out would not “correct the terrible wrong that was done to those two young men.”

Relatives of the two victims did not write letters to the judge offering their thoughts on the sentencing.

Hack, often breaking into tears, told Pro she knew that participating in the slaying scheme was wrong and that her heart would always be “torn and scarred.”

She said she was “petrified” to testify at trial but did it to help bring closure to the families of Newborn and Shersty and herself.

“I know I did the right thing,” she said. “I told the truth.”

Bryson said Hack was heavily influenced by her older brother and became indoctrinated into the skinhead movement at the age of 12. He said her testimony gave her a chance to relieve the terrible burden she carried for many years, and she has dramatically changed her outlook on life since the killings.

Hack is the former girlfriend of John “Polar Bear” Butler, 42, a neo-Nazi who was convicted in December 2000 in Clark County District Court in the double-murder case. Butler, who is in federal protective custody as he serves two life sentences, also testified at the trial.

The murder investigation into the deaths of Newborn and Shersty remained open after Butler’s conviction, and eventually the FBI took a leading role. Agents have theorized that Newborn, who was black, and Shersty, who was white, were killed because they were members of a skinhead group that opposed racial prejudice.

Hack and another woman, Mandie Abels, lured Newborn and Shersty to a remote desert site on federal land near Powerline Road and Centennial Parkway the evening of July 3, 1998, where they were ambushed and fatally shot, prosecutors said.

Newborn and Shersty were expecting to party with the women. Ross Hack, Butler, Jones and another man who has since died, all were lying in wait, according to prosecutors.

Abels secretly pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to murder in February 2012 and cooperated in the investigation. She was sentenced to 15 years in prison.

Contact Jeff German at jgerman@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-8135. Find him on Twitter: @JGermanRJ.