White supremacist gets 20-40 years in eye-gouging attack

A white supremacist from Fishtown was sentenced to 20 to 40 years in prison Friday after admitting he held a man down while another allegedly gouged out his eyes.

According to testimony, the 2012 incident stemmed from a dispute over a woman.

"Dave, I'm truly sorry for what happened," 31-year-old Frank Casiano told his victim, David Phillips, 46, a man once identified by an official of the hate group Aryan Terror Brigade as its Pennsylvania state representative.

Casiano's apology prompted Phillips to call out that he wanted to speak, although just moments earlier, the prosecutor had read his victim-impact letter to Philadelphia Common Pleas Court Judge Robert P. Coleman.

Phillips, tattooed with white supremacist symbols and phrases, carried a blind person's cane and held Assistant District Attorney Alisa Shver's arm as she led him before the judge.

Phillips said he had thought a lot about how relatives of the nine people killed last month in a Charleston, S.C., church had spoken of forgiving the alleged shooter, a self-described white supremacist.

"There is no way that I can forgive this man for what he did to me," said Phillips, his voice cracking and tears running down his face. Phillips said he remembered Casiano sitting on his chest and whispering, " 'Dave, I want you to remember who did this to you.' "

"Maybe God can find a way to have mercy on your soul, pal," Phillips said.

Shver said Phillips and Stephen Masten had been feuding over an incident involving Phillips and Masten's girlfriend when Masten was in jail.

On the night of May 6, 2012, Shver said, Masten and Casiano broke into Phillips' house in the Northeast, beat him, and threatened to kill him. Casiano then pinned down Phillips while Masten allegedly went at his eyes.

Casiano pleaded guilty in April to aggravated assault, conspiracy, and burglary. Masten, 32, faces trial Oct. 14 on those charges plus attempted murder and other counts.

Phillips, accompanied by his girlfriend, his sister, and other relatives, sobbed as Casiano's lawyer, Geoffrey Kilroy, tried to convince Coleman that Casiano deserved a chance to redeem himself.

Kilroy called Casiano a mentally ill loner and a drug user, someone "on the fringe of society" who fell in with supremacists "at a very young age because they took him in and made him feel welcome."

Casiano said his 38 months in prison had been a "wake-up call. . . . Life is too short to be full of hate." He said he wants to become a drug counselor and social worker when he gets out of prison.

Shver, however, argued that Casiano was unrepentant, and that in recorded prison phone calls to his girlfriend, he was heard trying to concoct an alibi for the assault.