HTN: Admitted Cross-Burner Gets Harsh Sentence

A Buffalo man will spend three-and-a-half to seven years behind bars after admitting to burning a cross at a racially mixed couple's home. Prosecutors say 41-year-old Donald Napierala crafted a four-foot high wooden cross and lit it on fire on his neighbor's South Park Avenue front lawn last July. Lawyers for Napierala say the neighbor hit Napierela with a metal pipe on July fourth, which led him to seek revenge. Napierala's mother says her son just wanted to scare the neighbor to get him to leave them alone. He pleaded guilty to a felony hate crime of reckless endangerment and aggravated harrasment.