PITTSBURGH, PA – Two former residents of Beaver County, Pennsylvania, have been indicted by a federal grand jury in Pittsburgh on federal hate crime charges, United States Attorney Cindy K. Chung announced today.
The twelve-count Indictment unsealed yesterday names Zachary Dinell, 28, formerly of Freedom, Pennsylvania, and Tyler Smith, 31, most recently of New Brighton, Pennsylvania, as defendants.
According to the Indictment, Dinell and Smith were employees of an in-patient health care facility located in New Brighton, Pennsylvania. The Indictment alleges that residents of the facility suffered from a range of severe physical, intellectual, and emotional disabilities, and required assistance with all activities of daily life, including bathing, using the bathroom, oral hygiene, feeding, and dressing. As members of the facility’s Direct Care Staff, Dinell and Smith were responsible for providing this daily assistance to residents.
The Indictment further alleges that from approximately June 2016 to September 2017, Dinell and Smith engaged in a conspiracy to commit hate crimes, and did commit hate crimes, against residents of the facility because of the residents’ actual or perceived disabilities. As part of the conspiracy, the Indictment alleges that Dinell and Smith exchanged text messages in which they expressed their animus toward the disabled residents, shared pictures and videos of residents and attacks, described their attacks, and encouraged each other’s continued...
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