Two Defendants Sent to Prison on Federal Civil Rights Hate Crime Charges

DAVENPORT—On July 17, 2009, Jeffery Thomas Lee, formerly of Kansas, was sentenced to 45 months in prison and Wendie Kay Groen, also from Kansas, was sentenced to 33 months in prison by United States District Court Judge John A. Jarvey, announced U.S. Attorney Matthew G. Whitaker. Jeffery Lee pleaded guilty to two counts of interfering with federally protected facilities by assaulting two African American male victims in Muscatine on December 13, 2007. Wendie Groen pleaded guilty to interfering with federal protected facilities by assaulting one of these same victims.

On December 13, 2007, two African American males went to the Canterbury Pub in the Econolodge in Muscatine. One of the victims sat at the bar and another was talking on a phone in the pool area. Jeffery Lee made racially offensive statements in reference to both subjects being allowed inside the bar. Lee went to the bar and sat down next to the one victim. Pistol Holliday, Timothy Ketner, and Wendie Groen joined Lee at the bar. While sitting next to the first victim, Lee began physically attacking the victim, knocking him off his stool. All four defendants yelled racially derogatory statements as Lee continued to assault the victim. An employee and another patron intervened, stopped the first fight, and calmed the situation.

At that time, Groen made a racial reference and verbally encouraged the others to assault a second African American male back near some pool tables. Neither victim knew each other. Lee, Ketner, Holliday and Groen approached and began physically beating the second victim. Again, a bar employee and a patron intervened to break up the assault. The second victim attempted to escape up some stairs, Lee followed him and continued to assault him and make racially derogatory statements. Both attacks were unprovoked and neither victim was able to defend himself. Both victims received bodily injuries.

A few days after the fight, Lee, Ketner and Groen confronted a bar employee who had witnessed the assault and attempted to persuade the employee to change a statement to police. The employee refused.

The remaining two co-defendants, Timothy Ketner and Pistol Holliday have pled guilty and are awaiting sentencing on August 28, 2009. As part of the plea of all four defendants, they admitted this assault was because of the race of the victims. In fashioning a sentence, Judge Jarvey noted his review of victim impact statements from both victims and the lifetime negative effect this assault would have on the victims. Both Lee and Groen were taken into immediate custody by the U.S. Marshals to begin serving their terms of imprisonment.

This case was prosecuted in the United States Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of Iowa. This investigation was conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Muscatine Police Department, and the Muscatine County Attorney’s Office.