Today Joshua Brandon Vallum will become the first person in United States history to be sentenced on federal hate-crime charges for murdering a transgender person. According to the
Associated Press, Vallum is scheduled to appear before a judge today in Gulfport, Mississippi, after he pled guilty to hate-crime charges in the death of 17-year-old Mercedes Williams in December 2015.
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Vallum, a Mississippi resident and member of the Latin Kings gang, reportedly lured Williams into a car in Alabama and drove her to his family's home in Mississippi before stabbing her multiple times and beating her with a claw hammer. Vallum said he was motivated out of fear what would happen to him if his gang found out he was dating a transgender woman.
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"For this Justice Department, it is important for us to send an unequivocal message that violence based on one's gender identity constitutes a hate crime," Vanita Gupta of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division told BuzzFeed News after Vallum was charged under the federal hate-crime law in December. "It is important for us to have spoken out on the bias motive."