Man sentenced to nearly nine years for racial attack SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - One of three men who beat and severely injured a black bicyclist in a racial attack has been sentenced to nearly nine years in prison. U.S. District Judge David Sam imposed the 105-month sentence - the maximum recommended under federal sentencing guidelines - on David Lance Gardner, who once beat a Hispanic man to death in California. ’Hate crimes are not going to be tolerated by this court," Sam said last week. He also ordered Gardner to pay $22,000 in restitution. Authorities said Gardner, 43, of Sandy; Robby Wayne Baalman, 22, of Sandy; and Keith Wayne Cotter, 25, of Draper had been drinking at various bars on March 12, 2005, when they spotted the 52-year-old victim bicycling to work near 1700 South and 400 East. Baalman said Gardner ’instructed Cotter to `go get that ni**er on the bike."' ’Gardner indicated that this would be my initiation into a white supremacists organization, the American Front," Baalman wrote. Gardner said ’they" decided to attack the man. He said previously that he wanted ’to raise awareness that skinheads are out there which sent a message that these are our streets, white streets, and to show them this is a white country that whites had built." The three knocked the victim off his bike, stomped, kicked and punched the man and Cotter allegedly hit him with a beer bottle. The attack ended when residents came out of a house and yelled at the three. The victim was treated at a hospital and later released. The three defendants were charged with the hate crime of interference with a federally protected activity, in this case, the victim's use of public streets. All pleaded guilty as part of deals with prosecutors. In court, Gardner apologized for his actions. ’I guarantee, no matter what, nothing like this will ever happen again in my life," he said.

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