INDIANAPOLIS — A suburban Indianapolis Army veteran was sentenced to 55 years in jail Wednesday for the highway rage taking pictures dying of a Muslim man after witnesses mentioned he hurled ethnic and non secular insults on the sufferer.
Dustin Passarelli of Plainfield was convicted in Could of homicide and a felony firearm enhancement within the February 2019 taking pictures dying of 32-year-old Mustafa Ayoubi.
Passarelli adopted Ayoubi off Interstate 465, and a verbal altercation came about, prosecutors mentioned. Witnesses mentioned Passarelli made a number of Islamophobic remarks, together with “Return to your nation,” and used hate speech earlier than opening fireplace.
Passarelli instructed police that Ayoubi both threw one thing at his automotive or collided with it on the freeway and that after he adopted Ayoubi to an condo complicated, Ayoubi broke one among Passarelli’s automotive home windows with a punch.
The protection argued that Passarelli was inside his rights to fireside at Ayoubi as a result of it was self-defense.
Passarelli was not charged with a hate crime. Six weeks after Ayoubi’s killing, Indiana lawmakers handed a hate crimes invoice that included a provision permitting judges to impose longer sentences for crimes motivated by bias.
Ayoubi got here to the U.S. from Afghanistan as a refugee.
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