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UVA Law Is Set to Won’t Welcome Tom Tancredo Staffer Guilty of Hate Crimes

Monday, June 1, 2009 4:27 PM - By Elie Mystal

Marcus Epstein.jpgYou’ll recognize the comedic stylings of Tom Tancredo from his brief turn as the Republican presidential candidate capable of protecting us from the rampaging Mexican hordes. Recently, Tancredo has been liberally availing himself of the opportunity to call Judge Sotomayor a racist.

Maybe you can’t blame Tancredo for throwing around the racist moniker. White men get to use the term so rarely that hearing him say it is almost cute — kind of like when a baby learns its first curse word.

But maybe Tancredo should check his own house before throwing around charged terms. One of his chief speechwriters, Marcus Epstein, has pleaded guilty to a hate crime.

According to documents obtained from District of Columbia’s Superior Court, Epstein, 25, must appear before Judge Wendell P. Gardner on July 8 for sentencing after pleading guilty to simple assault charges stemming from an incident during the early evening hours of July 7, 2007. The documents state that Epstein was walking down the street making offensive remarks when he encountered the victim, called her the “N-word” and struck her in her head. He was briefly detained by the woman’s husband, but was able to escape, only to be arrested minutes later by a Secret Service officer who witnessed the attack. According to the officer’s statement, a friend of Epstein’s informed him that he had been drinking.

Nothing says “protecting the future of America” quite like getting drunk and slapping a woman.

While rubbing shoulders with Tom Tancredo and Bay Buchanan, Epstein has made quite a name for himself with his colorful rhetoric. But it appears that Epstein has been a good soldier for Tancredo. And the Congressman isn’t going to abandon him just because he likes to get drunk and hit black people on the head.

Apparently, neither will UVA. More details — plus an update — after the jump.

Epstein currently works with Tancredo’s PAC, and it looks like he will be able to keep that job:

Epstein has plead guilty and will be sentenced on July 8, although he changed his plea to water down an admission of guilt into the belief that “the government could prove me guilty.” A spokesman for Team America PAC confirmed that Epstein is still at work until he leaves for law school in the fall and an official statement is forthcoming.

His law school landing spot is UVA Law.

Above the Law reached out to UVA Law Dean Paul G. Mahoney, but he has not responded to our inquiries.

Update: It appears that Epstein won’t be going to UVA Law after all.

Update (6:39): But Epstein’s Facebook status still lists “UVA grad student ‘12” as one of his networks.

But diversity of opinions is an important goal for most law schools. If nothing else, it is likely that Epstein will have very interesting points to make when his class discusses the constitutionality of hate crimes legislation.

Still, some UVA Law students are unhappy with the antics of their future classmate:

As a current UVA law student, I’m horrified. He was at admitted students weekend in April. I heard that he worked for Bay Buchanan, but did not know about this at the time. He was a WEIRD kid.

I’m assuming that the above tipster is a white UVA Law student. I’d imagine that black UVA students are actually looking forward to the possibility of getting slapped upside the head by a drunk 1L shouting racial epithets.

Beating the living hell out of a racist jackass under the guise of “self-defense” is better than sex.

YOUTH FOR WESTERN CIVILIZATION CO-FOUNDER FACES SENTENCING ON HATE CRIME ASSAULT IN JULY [One People’s Project]
Tancredo Aide Pleads Guilty to Karate Chopping Pedestrian [Talking Points Memo]
Tom Tancredo Staffer Pleads Guilty to Karate-Chopping Black Woman [Washington Independent]

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