A 25 years old Toledo man had pleaded guilty to a federal hate crime charge on Tuesday in the Northern District Court, Ohio after beating an African-American stranger in the street earlier this year.

According to court documents, on May 18 in Toledo, Robert Paschalis and his co-defendant, Charles Butler, drove past the victim in a GMC truck bearing a small Confederate flag sticker, circled back, then attacked the man while yelling racial slurs, . The victim was not named in any court documents.

Butler, 34 years old, pleaded guilty to the crime Nov. 9. The beating had been lasted for over a minute and was captured on the surveillance cameras of a nearby restaurant, investigators said. During the attack, Butler pulled a broom from the back of the truck and struck the victim several times with it.

Paschalis and Butler had stopped only when two off-duty Ohio Public Safety Officers passed by and broke up the fight, the documents state.

By Prakriti Neogi