ROCKFORD (WREX) — A Minnesota man has been sentenced to life in federal prison after killing his fellow inmate at the Thomson, Ill. federal penitentiary because he was Jewish.

Brandon Simonson, 41 of Moorhead, Minn., was sentenced to life in prison on Friday after his conviction earlier this year by a federal jury of Second Degree Murder, Conspiracy to Commit Murder, Assault, and Committing a Hate Crime in the 2020 death of fellow inmate Matthew Phillips.

According to the U.S. Attorney's Office, on March 2, 2020, Simonson and co-defendant Kristopher Martin punched and kicked Phillips, who was Jewish, even as he was unconscious and defenseless. Simonson and Martin were seeking recognition within a white supremacist prison gang called Valhalla Bound Skinheads at FCI Thomson in Carroll Coun

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