A Nazi sympathizer pleaded guilty to defacing a synagogue. His lawyer says conservatives helped radicalize him.

After Nolan Brewer pleaded guilty to charges in connection with painting swastikas on an Indiana synagogue’s property and setting the yard ablaze, his attorney argued in court documents that the 21-year-old man did not deserve prison time.

He had been influenced heavily by his wife, Kiyomi Brewer, his attorney wrote in a sentencing memo filed last week, and putting Nolan Brewer in prison would only further stoke the prejudiced beliefs that had inspired the couple to commit those acts.

Prisons are hotbeds for brainwashing by white supremacists, Nolan Brewer’s lawyer, Samuel Ansell, wrote in a sentencing memo filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana. Probation and significant community service were more appropriate punishments, Ansell wrote.

View the complete May 27 article by Katie Mettler from The Washington Post website here.