A fine of $25 or five days in prison was imposed yesterday on Eugene Lawrence, 46, a Hungarian-born real estate broker, for attacking John Beattie, self-styled Nazi leader, in the Allen Gardens park here last April 20. Magistrate Charles Drunkard restricted trial proceedings solely to the assault charge, refusing to permit introduction of any political matters. He reprimanded the defendant for “taking the law into his own hands” but imposed a light penalty. The maximum term for committing assault occasioning bodily harm is two years imprisonment.
Mr. Lawrence, who was in a Nazi labor camp during World War II, attacked the neo-Nazi with a pair of binoculars while Beattie was marching through Allen Gardens carrying a placard which read “Free Speech or Death.” The neo-Nazi was protesting denial of a permit to hold a public meeting to celebrate Hitler’s birthday in the park. Lawrence attacked him early in the march, cutting his head and knocking him unconscious for a few minutes, according to testimony at the trial.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
