(File Photo of the Federal Courthouse in Pittsburgh)
(Pittsburgh, Pa.) Former Freedom resident 28-year-old Zachary Dinell pleaded guilty in federal court to federal hate crime charges.
Dinell is charged with one count of conspiracy, ten counts of violating the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, and one count of concealing material facts in a health care matter before United States District
Judge J. Nicholas Ranjan Thursday.
According to admissions made during Dinell’s plea hearing, he and co-defendant Tyler Smith were employees of Mc Guire Home in New Brighton, Pennsylvania.
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 admitted that he and Smith were responsible for providing this daily assistance to residents.
From approximately June 2016 to September 2017, Dinell further admitted that he and Smith engaged in a conspiracy to commit hate crimes against residents of the facility because of the residents’ actual or perceived disabilities. Dinell and Smith carried out assaults in a variety of ways, including by punching and kicking residents, jumping on residents, rubbing liquid irritants in their eyes, spraying liquid irritants in their eyes and mouths, and in one instance removing a resident’s compression stocking in a manner intended to inflict pain. Several of these assaults were recorded
on Dinell’s cell phone. As part of the conspiracy, Dinell acknowledged that he and Smith exchanged text messages in which they expressed their animus toward the disabled residents, shared pictures and videos of residents, described their assaults, and encouraged each other’s continued abuse of residents.
Dinell further admitted that he and Smith were able to avoid detection by, among other things, exploiting their one-on-one access to residents of the facility and the fact that the victims were non-verbal and could not report the defendant’s alleged abuse. Due to their physical disabilities, the residents also were not able to defend themselves against the alleged assaults.
As part of his plea agreement, and subject to the approval of Judge Ranjan, Dinell has agreed to a term of imprisonment of between 14 and 17 years.
The case against Smith remains pending, and he is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.
