“My intention wasn’t to do anything to hurt them,” he said. Cella, who added that he had merely meant to drive the men to remote locations from which it would be difficult to get home and had not meant to get into physical altercations. Cella denied that the episodes were racially motivated and said that one involved a man toward whom he felt lingering animosity as a result of a painting job they had worked on together. He was placed on supervised release with GPS monitoring at an arraignment on Monday and is scheduled to return to court on Friday. Cella, of Selden, N.Y., was arrested and charged with several hate crimes.
Cella tried to run him down, the authorities said.Īll three of the victims were Hispanic, the police said, and on Sunday, Mr. Once in the car, the man became suspicious of Mr. Cella returned to the 7-Eleven and picked up a 47-year-old man.
