LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — The head of the U.S. Justice Department's Civil Rights division is pledging to continue to pursue hate crimes despite a case that just ended with two Kentucky men being acquitted of an anti-gay attack.
Assistant Attorney General Thomas E. Perez said in a statement Thursday that the department "will continue to use every tool in our arsenal" to investigate hate crimes.
A federal jury in London, Ky., on Wednesday found Anthony Ray Jenkins and his cousin, David Jason Jenkins, not guilty of charges that they beat 29-year-old Kevin Pennington in April 2011. Both men were convicted of kidnapping in the case.
The trial was the first prosecution under a 2009 expansion of federal hate crimes law to include assaults motivated by sexual orientation.
