Hells Angel sentenced to 21 years to life in Ocean Beach hate crime

Troy Andrew Scholder Photo courtesy of San Diego County District Attorney s Office A member of the Hells Angels was sentenced Friday to years to life in state prison for stabbing a young Black man in the chest in Ocean Beach Prosecutors called the attack which included two other Black men racially motivated Troy Andrew Scholder described by the San Diego County District Attorney s Office as a longtime leader of an functioning San Diego County chapter of the motorcycle gang was one of people indicted by a grand jury for various roles in the June attack A San Diego jury convicted him earlier this year of attempted murder assault and a hate crime allegation Prosecutors noted the casualties ages and were chased by the defendants on Newport Avenue after one of them apparently spoke to the girlfriend of another Hells Angels member One of the casualties fled but the other two were severely beaten by numerous defendants who hurled racial slurs and notified the casualties they didn t belong in that neighborhood While one of the beating sufferers was on the ground Scholder pulled a knife and stabbed him in the chest Deputy District Attorney Miriam Hemming disclosed the knife fractured the victim s sternum pierced his lung and severed an artery nearly causing the man to bleed out Scholder s prison sentence was doubled due to a prior conviction in which he pleaded guilty to robbing a former Hells Angels member who had sought to leave the gang Defense attorney Marc Kohnen argued against imposing the strike because he stated Scholder had been living crime free between that happening which occurred in and the attack Kohnen also argued that despite jurors finding the hate crime allegation true there wasn t evidence that Scholder s actions were hate motivated or that he used racial slurs during the happening Hemming argued that during the crime Scholder was leading a pack of men who shouted racial slurs and that he had long associated with co-defendants who espoused white supremacist views She also reported Scholder had white supremacist tattoos and had used racial slurs on prior occasions One of those incidents led to a misdemeanor conviction in which included a hate crime allegation Hemming revealed In that case the prosecutor explained Scholder got into a fight with a Black man at a Pacific Beach bar after the victim sought Scholder to stop smoking a cigarette next to him When police came to arrest Scholder he called the victim the N-word multiple times noted he knows people who would hang them from trees and reported one of the arresting officers to remember the Fatherland according to Hemming In the Ocean Beach occurrence the prosecutor noted the casualties were just walking down the street before they were attacked She noted one witness described the casualties being beaten within an inch of their lives After the stabbing other co-defendants spirited Scholder from the crime scene to the gang s clubhouse in El Cajon prosecutors declared Scholder and his co-defendants were arrested nearly three months later