Hate crime trial begins in Cd'A

COEUR d’ALENE — Richard Sovenski sat quietly next to his attorney Tuesday in First District Court as a video rolled, showing the Hayden 52-year-old screaming at a group of Spokane teenagers last summer outside a McDonald’s in Coeur d’Alene.

On the first day of his jury trial, Sovenski, who has pleaded not guilty to misdemeanor battery and felony malicious harassment stemming from the July 12 incident, quietly listened to testimony from the teenagers and three adult youth leaders.

Dressed in a brown plaid shirt and slacks, his hair tightly cropped, he seemed composed Tuesday in light of the cellphone video that prosecutors played on a screen. The video showed an angry, puffed up Sovenski wearing a bright yellow, reflective, construction site shirt and baseball cap as he lurched menacingly at the teens, calling them “n....r,” “fags,” and “halfbreeds.”

The video was shot by Quezacoatl “Jose” Ceniceros, a leader for Spokane’s Youth for Christ, who said he and two other youth leaders had traveled from Spokane with five teens to watch a friend preach at the One Place Church in Hayden before the incident occurred.

On their way home they stopped at the McDonald’s at 340 W. Hanley for ice cream. With a cone in one hand and holding the door with his other hand, Ceniceros let the teens back outside as they headed to their van parked under the McDonald’s sign.

“That is when he hit you?” deputy prosecutor Art Verharen asked Ceniceros.

“Yes sir,” Ceniceros replied. “I had my back turned toward him.”

Earlier, before the fracas, as Ceniceros ordered ice cream inside the McDonald’s, the five teens were standing beside the soda fountain, jazzed up on the ministry they had experienced at One Place, youth leader Jennifer Henninger said.

The teens were “Real excited about Christ … laughing, singing and dancing,” Henninger said.

The activity may have riled up Sovenski, who told police he feared for his wife, who recently had surgery and was afraid one of the teens would bump her arm, which was in a sling.

As the teens were filing out of the McDonald’s, Henninger said she turned to see Sovenski strike Ceniceros, who fell to the ground, rolled, pulled out his cellphone and started filming.

“I see the gentleman coming up behind Jose and hitting him to the ground,” Henninger told the jury.

Sovenski was yelling obscene expletives, calling the group “half breeds” and telling them to “get out of Idaho,” she said. “He was actually postured in an aggressive way, leaning forward.”

The video that jurors saw showed a wild-eyed Sovenski being held back by his son, Bryce, who is seen on a video trying to block the camera.

One of the two men yelled at the teens and youth leaders that he will “f… you up in a f...ing heartbeat.”

Sovenski was indicted based on witness reports, and arrested five days after the incident. He told police the group of teens had spit ice cream all over his car, according to a police report.

Idaho’s malicious harassment law makes it illegal to intimidate or harass another person because of that person’s race, color, religion, ancestry or national origin.

It is punishable by up to five years in prison and a $5,000 fine.

The three-day trial in Coeur d’Alene resumes today at 9 a.m. in the Justice Building. Prosecutors will call two more witnesses before defense attorney Michael Palmer of Coeur d’Alene presents his case.