(WISH file photo)
Updated: Wednesday, 30 Sep 2009, 11:10 AM EDT
Published : Wednesday, 30 Sep 2009, 11:10 AM EDT
SOUTH BEND, Ind. (AP) - A northern Indiana man has agreed to plead guilty to charges
stemming from a 2007 cross burning outside the home of his white
niece and her black boyfriend.
Bruce Mikulyuk, 50, of Mishawaka will be sentenced to 3 1/2
years in prison if a federal judge accepts the plea agreement he
reached with prosecutors.
Mikulyuk admits in court documents that he burned the cross at
the Mishawaka home, then returned with a knife and threatened the
black man.
The woman involved, 28-year-old Trisha Mikulyuk, said Bruce
Mikulyuk is her uncle and that she never wanted him to face
criminal charges.
She told the South Bend Tribune that her uncle is not a racist and that she believed he threatened her boyfriend because he had not been paying child support.
Police agencies from two different states teamed up to find a wanted man and …