Two neo-Nazi thugs have been jailed for branding a swastika into the skin of a man with learning difficulties with a searing hot coat hanger.
Sadistic Paul Beebe, 28, and Jesse Sanford, 26, were sentenced to eight and a half years and five years in prison respectively, for their part in the brutal attack which lasted for several hours.
Beebe and Sanford lured vulnerable Vincent Kee, 22, to Beebe's swastika-bedecked apartment in Farmington, New Mexico, on April 29, 2010 and tortured him for hours.
They put a towel in his mouth to stop his screams and used a wire hanger heated on the stove to brand a swastika into his arm.
They also shaved a swastika into his hair and wrote 'KKK' and 'White Power' on his body.
They recorded the incident with a cellphone camera, the New York Daily News reports.
'The facts of this case shock the conscience,' said Thomas Perez, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division.
Speaking last year when Beebe and Sanford pleaded guilty, New Mexico's U.S. Attorney, Kenneth Gonzales said: 'The young victim in this case was assaulted, branded and scarred because he happens to be a Native American - that simply is inexcusable and criminal.'
'Today's guilty pleas demonstrate the law enforcement community's resolve to bring to justice anyone who victimizes a person because of the colour of their skin or ethnic heritage.'
A third defendant has yet to be sentenced after pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit a federal hate crime.
They are the first defendants to be prosecuted under a new U.S. federal hate crimes law pleading guilty in Albuquerque, to violating the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act.
The act was signed into law by President Obama in 2009
Once released, the pair will be supervised for three years by authorities.
The new hate crimes law is named for Matthew Shepard, the gay Wyoming teenager who was tortured and left to die tied to a fence post, and James Byrd Jr., the black Texas man who was chained to a pickup truck by the ankles and dragged two miles to his death.
Mr Perez said more than 80 investigations are ongoing under the new law.
