Victoria mosque arson suspect charged with hate crime
Five months after flames ripped through a Victoria mosque, arson suspect Marq Vincent Perez has been charged with a hate crime.
"Intentionally defacing, damaging or destroying a religious house of worship, such as a mosque, here is a federal crime, a crime that is intolerable in a free and open society of the type that we live in," said Abe Martinez, acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Texas.
Martinez and local, state and national law enforcement officials announced the charges at a Thursday afternoon news conference in the basement of the Martin Luther King Jr. Federal Building in Victoria.
Although Perez was arrested March 3, prosecutors had only connected him to the Jan. 28 arson of the Victoria Islamic Center through the testimony of a federal special agent - until now. Investigators spent those months interviewing "countless" sources and analyzing evidence, Martinez said.
Read more: https://www.victoriaadvocate.com/news/2017/jun/22/mosque-arson-suspect-indicted-on-hate-crime/
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