A self-professed skinhead from Eugene who traveled to Washington state to honor a white supremacist killed in a 1980s shootout with federal agents admitted this week that he assaulted a Black disc jockey in a bar there because of the color of his skin.

Randy Aaron Smith, 42, pleaded guilty Monday in federal court in Seattle to committing the hate crime, acknowledging his role in the Dec. 8, 2018, racially motivated attack, according to his plea agreement.

Smith entered a bar in Lynnwood, Washington, giving a Nazi salute, according to the plea deal signed by Smith and his lawyer Ralph Hurvitz.

He wore a Crew 38 T-shirt, representing a support group for the white supremacist Hammerskins, wore a ring with a swastika on it and sported several tattoos —including one of a swastika, the word “skinhead” and the phrase “Inspired by Hate,” according to federal prosecutors.

While in the bar, Smith and other skinheads were on the dance floor as the disc jockey, identified in court papers only as “T.S.,” stood on a small stage playing music.

At one point, a person in the group climbed up on the DJ’s stage and started touching the DJ’s equipment. The DJ moved the person away, which prompted others in the Crew 38 and Hammerskins groups to yell racist slurs at him, according to the plea agreement.

After the disc jockey cursed at the group, Smith and others attacked him, according to prosecutors. Smith repeatedly punched the DJ after he’d been knocked to the floor. Others kicked and stomped him with their boots, repeatedly yelling racist slurs during the assault, prosecutors said.

Two other men, described in court records as biracial, attempted to intervene and help the DJ but were then assaulted themselves by members of the Crew 38 and Hammerskins,according to court records.

Police stopped Smith and several others as they drove away in a pickup. Smith had blood on his knuckles when arrested, according to prosecutors.

During an interview Dec. 16 with FBI agents, Smith lied when he said he didn’t remember anyone calling the disc jockey racist slurs during the assault, according to the plea agreement.

Smith “then well knew, his statements to the FBI Special Agent were false, in that he and others had called T.S. a racial slur before, during, and after the assault,” says count two of the criminal information charging him with making a false statement.

Smith is the third of four co-defendants to enter a plea in the case. The others charged are Jason Desimas, of Tacoma, Washington; Jason Stanley, of Boise, Idaho; and Daniel Delbert Dorson of Corvallis. Desimas, who has numerous tattoos of “White Pride” on his arms and neck, pleaded guilty in April to committing a hate crime and making a false statement, and Dorson pleaded guilty to committing a hate crime and making false statements in April 2021. Stanley is set for trial on Oct. 31.

The men were in town to attend an annual weekend memorial service, often referred to as “Martyr’s Day,” honoring white supremacist Robert J. Matthews, who died during a shootout with the FBI on Whidbey Island in 1984.

Smith initially was arrested in June and had made his first appearance in federal court in Eugene before the case was transferred to the Western District of Washington.

In court records, a prosecutor in the case shared a summary of the victim’s statement. The man described “the long-lasting and significant impact that the hate crime has had on him, that he does not know where the defendants are located, and that they could be anyone,” forcing him to be “hypervigilant” and “fearful” of his safety at all times, according to Assistant U.S. Attorney Ye-Ting Woo. The statement was sealed.

In a separate case brought in Oregon, Smith also pleaded guilty to a federal charge of being a felon in possession of a firearm. He admitted he had a Ruger 9 mm pistol, a magazine holding seven rounds of ammunition and an additional magazine on July 10, 2020. He was barred from having a gun because he was convicted of a felony, possession of heroin, in Lane County Circuit Court in 2009.

U.S. District Judge Richard A. Jones has scheduled sentencing for Smith on Nov. 18 in federal court in the Washington and Oregon cases.

Prosecutors said they will recommend that the prison terms he receives for the separate cases run concurrently.

The hate crime conviction carries a maximum of 10 years in prison and the false statement conviction carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison.

The weapons conviction carries a maximum sentence of 10 years.