A Florida man who pleaded guilty to committing a hate crime with a deadly weapon against Black teens has been sentenced to probation and 300 hours of community service.
He also was mandated by the courts to verbally apologize for his actions on Martin Luther King Jr. Day 2019 and admit that the words he used against the minors were hurtful.
The 55-year-old white businessman called the teens the N-word while wielding a gun, cellphone video shows.
One clip posted on social media by a witness showed Mark Bartlett shouting at one teen.
“N—-rs suck,” Bartlett yelled out of his van window, the Miami Times reports.
On Tuesday, May 30, Bartlett was sentenced to 10 years on probation after taking a plea deal with Miami-Dade County prosecutors for hurling racial slurs and brandishing a gun at Deante Joseph and Kidanys Cruz, the two victims in this case, four years ago, CBS News 10 reports.
“Mr. Bartlett is here today taking responsibility for his racist and deplorable conduct. The victims appreciate that. Hopefully, you really understand how terrible your conduct was, and you are sincere about what you did,” said attorney Marwan Porter who represents Joseph and Cruz.
The victims were a group of young cyclists gathering on the Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service to protest two primary causes: the potential loss of affordable housing in Miami’s Liberty City neighborhood and gun violence.
The anti-gun violence demonstration was called “Wheels Up, Guns Down” and featured mostly young Black males on their bikes, motorcycles, and all-terrain vehicles. Participants not only rode their bikes between traffic but put on elaborate shows that included popping wheelies and riding while standing up.
Multiple cellphone videos captured Bartlett, seemingly upset that the teens were blocking traffic in the downtown Miami area and pulling out his handgun as he blasted the minors with racial epithets.
Despite being aware that bystanders were filming him, Bartlett did not stop his rant. Later during the incident, the man gets out of his vehicle and says to the teens, “You’re a bunch of fucking stupid n—-rs,” with his weapon out to frighten the underaged demonstrators.
Bartlett argued that he confronted the teens to defend his girlfriend who was already in a shouting match with the group after she demanded that they move. The woman accused one of the teens of running over her foot.
Initially, he was charged with carrying a concealed firearm. Those charges were adjusted, with the prosecution adding other counts of aggravated assault with prejudice. In total, Bartlett pleaded guilty to five different counts.
The plea agreement will require the Broward County man to fulfill hundreds of hours of community service, take anger management classes, attend racial sensitivity training with the NAACP, and relinquish his rights to possess a firearm for a decade.
Lastly, two additional terms of the deal are that Bartlett is forbidden to have any contact with the victims and had to appear before the court and apologize, with an emphasis on how negatively impacting his use of derogatory slurs was on the victims.
“I apologized for my conduct that day,” Bartlett said while reading a statement in court. “I was wrong to use those words and direct the pain that my words have caused anyone around or anyone in the vicinity.”
Both Joseph and Cruz were present to hear his apology.
When asked about the outcome of the case, Joseph said, “To be honest I’m not really happy. They should have put the belt on him all the way, no remorse because if it was the other way around, they would have put it on us.”
The judge handling the case, Alberto Milian, said the two victims had to agree to the terms also, or he would not have signed off on it.
Milian granted Bartlett a withhold of adjudication. As a result, he will avoid a formal conviction which could have left the Floridian in prison for as much as 55 years.
If Bartlett does not fulfill the requirements of the plea agreements, the state attorney’s office says the over five decades of prison are back on the table.
“The message is clear, that we will tolerate bigotry or racism, and whether it was sincere or not Mr. Bartlett acknowledged his wrongdoing and apologized to the victims and some other aspects of the case and made the victim feel that his apology was sincere and they wanted to accept it,” said Porter.
With no time to be served in jail and a plea deal in motion, Bartlett will be allowed to assume his life with few interruptions.
One interruption is that he must now get a probation officer’s permission when he has to travel to places like Puerto Rico and Chicago for business.
