Testimony in Arbery hate crime trial ends

BRUNSWICK, Ga. — Witness testimony concluded Friday in the hate crimes trial of three men convicted of murdering Ahmaud Arbery with final prosecution witnesses saying they heard two of the

defendants make racist statements, including crude sexual remarks directed at a woman who had dated a Black man.

After federal prosecutors rested their case, defense attorneys followed suit after calling a single witness: a neighbor of the accused men whose testimony suggested that a man two of the defendants reported to police as suspicious in 2019 was likely white.

U.S. District Court Judge Lisa Godbey Wood excused the jury for the weekend and scheduled closing arguments for Monday, which will mark one week since the trial began.

Father and son Greg and Travis McMichael armed themselves and chased Arbery in a pickup truck two years ago after spotting the 25-year-old Black man running in their Georgia subdivision. A neighbor, William “Roddie” Bryan, recorded cell phone video of Travis McMichael blasting Arbery with a shotgun.

All three men were convicted of murder last fall in a Georgia state court. They’re now standing trial in a separate case in federal court, charged with violating Arbery’s civil rights and targeting him because he was Black. The McMichaels and Bryan have pleaded not guilty.

A woman who served under Travis McMichael in the U.S. Coast Guard a decade ago testified Friday that he made crass jokes mocking “that I had been sexually active with an African American man” when he learned that she had previously dated a Black man.

“He called me an N-word lover,” Kristie Ronquille told the jury, saying she found his comments “infuriating and disrespectful.”

Also on the witness stand Friday, Kim Ballesteros testified that Greg McMichael once mocked a Black woman he rented a home to. Ballesteros and her husband lived across the street from the McMichaels roughly three years ago and were talking about their experiences as landlords.

Ballesteros said Greg McMichael told her that he nicknamed his former Black tenant “the Walrus” because of her skin color and her size. He said he once disconnected her home air-conditioner during the summer when she was late paying rent.

Evidence that the McMichaels and Bryan held racist views of Black people is critical to prosecutors’ case that Arbery’s death was a hate crime.

On Wednesday, an FBI analyst walked the jury through roughly two dozen racist text messages and social media posts by the McMichaels and Bryan. Travis McMichael repeatedly used the N-word and other racist slurs in electronic messages.