The teens charged with torching a sleeping Mexican family's Long Island home pleaded not guilty yesterday as sickening new details of their alleged hate crime were bared in court.
Kyle Mahler, 17, William Lutz, 16, and Scott Soucek, 16, showed absolutely no emotion while they were indicted on charges of reckless endangerment and arson as hate crimes in the July 4 attack in Farmingville.
Outside of court Suffolk County District Attorney Thomas Spota accused the three of:
* Setting fire to the house because, in the words of Lutz, "Mexicans live there."
* Referring to their victims' neighborhood as "Mexicanville."
* Boasting that it was "fun to throw firecrackers" that started the blaze.
Prosecutors further charged that Mahler carried around anti-Hispanic literature as well as photos of Ku Klux Klan members.
And they said that one of Lutz's top priorities had been to get a copy of his mug shot so he could keep it in his wallet to show pals at school.
Mahler and Lutz, of Farmingdale, and Soucek, of Holtsville, all face up to 15 years in the slammer if convicted of the racially motivated assault.
But none of the kids appeared to have a care in the world as they stood before Judge James Hudson in Suffolk County Criminal Court in Riverhead yesterday.
Cops say the vicious teens fired a foot-long rocket into a window of the Granny Road home of Sergio Perez-Garcia and his wife, Maria, sparking a massive blaze.
The home was gutted, and the couple and their two kids barely escaped with their lives.
According to prosecutors, Mahler drove the getaway car and Lutz launched the rocket into the house.
The trio drove around the block, returning to see if the residence was burning, then parked at Mahler's house and walked back to the scene to watch firefighters battle the flames, prosecutors said.
Prosecutors also said Mahler may have had a vendetta against the family because he had called cops back in March 2001 to complain that somebody at the house had thrown a bottle at him.
