Man gets prison in passport fraud case

An alleged leader of a Las Vegas-based white supremacist gang was sentenced this week in Los Angeles to three years in prison for lying on a passport application while under investigation in a double murder case.

Ross Hack, 38, of Las Vegas was sentenced Tuesday by U.S. District Judge Dean Pregerson, who ordered the defendant to surrender to prison on Jan. 20. Hack previously pleaded guilty to a felony charge of making a false statement on a passport application.

According to a statement released Wednesday by the U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles, Pregerson found that Hack's motive to commit the crime was to flee an investigation into his possible involvement in a 1998 incident in which two anti-racist skinheads were slain.

Prior to their deaths, according to the statement, Daniel Shersty and Lin "Spit" Newborn were leaders of a Las Vegas group known as SHARPs -- Skin Heads Against Racial Prejudice.

On July 30, 1998, authorities seized Hack's passport while executing a search warrant at his home in connection with the investigation. A few days later, Hack drove to Los Angeles to file an emergency passport application. In the application, Hack claimed he lost his passport.

According to the statement from the U.S. attorney's office, Hack received his emergency passport and fled to Europe, where he remained for more than six years. During that time, his sister's boyfriend, John Butler, was convicted in the deaths of Shersty and Newborn.

Authorities began investigating Hack in relation to the passport fraud in January 2008 after he was identified as an organizer of a white supremacist rally in Las Vegas where an individual was assaulted and nearly killed. Hack was arrested in March 2008 in the passport fraud case.