SAN DIEGO — A man accused of assaulting a 17-year-old Syrian refugee and using a racial epithet during the attack while the two rode a San Diego trolley pleaded not guilty to the hate crime on Thursday.
Adrian Vergara, 26, was initially arrested Tuesday by Port of San Diego harbor police for an alleged misdemeanor narcotics violation, according to San Diego Police Department Lt. Shawn Takeuchi.
"During the arrest, Vergara was recognized as being wanted in connection to the SDPD hate crime investigation," Takeuchi said.
Officers booked him into custody on suspicion of felony assault and a misdemeanor hate crime offense, as well as a probation violation on an unrelated case.
Vergara is accused in the Oct. 15 attack, which happened around 3 p.m., when the victim was traveling home from school. The district attorney said in court on Thursday that the teenage victim was speaking Arabic on the phone. Vergara allegedly asked the victim, "what the hell is that?"
When the teen identified himself as an Arab, the man began shouting anti-Arab and Islamophobic slurs and attacked him, according to the San Diego chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
"The defendant ripped out earbud the victim was using to speak and asked 'what trash are you speaking?'" said Deputy District Attorney Leonard Trinh.
Following the assault, which left the victim with facial injuries, Vergara got off the trolley at 62nd Street in Encanto.
Detectives tracked down video images that "corroborated what the boy reported about the attack," Takeuchi said.
"When people threaten or commit harm to other people, we have zero tolerance for that," said Trinh.
The victim, whose name is still being kept private, released a statement on Thursday:
Vergara has a lengthy criminal history of mostly misdemeanors and domestic violence charges.
Since the district attorney is prosecuting the case with a hate crime enhancement, Vergara is facing 12 years in prison if convicted. Bail was set at $30,000 in the trolley attack. However, Vergara is on probation for a Jan. 2018 robbery charge and is being held without bail. He's due back in court Nov. 4 for a
readiness conference.