'White separatist' going back to jail

January 13, 2010|By JASON NARK, narkj@phillynews.com 856-779-3231
  • DeMunguia

If people don't mess with him, Christopher "Conan" DeMunguia insists that he won't mess with them either.

The problem, DeMunguia claims, is there's been a lot of people messing with him for a long, long, time.

A self-proclaimed "white separatist" who has spent 21 of his 36 years in some type of lockup, DeMunguia is, after a short stint of freedom, heading back to state prison - for busting a guy's jaw in his hometown of Gloucester City last year and taking on the cops who later came to get him.

"I was out of prison for a month before this all happened," he said yesterday outside of a Camden County Courtroom.

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According to DeMunguia, he stepped in and punched a man who attempted to sucker punch his friend inside Oh! Hara's Pub in Gloucester City on Jan. 17, 2009.

The victim's jaw was broken.

Thinking things had cooled over, DeMunguia was back at the bar less than a month later, despite a warrant out for his arrest for aggravated assault.

DeMunguia claims he was at the bar when Gloucester City police came in to get him.

"I wasn't out looking for trouble," he said.

Short and muscular with black tattoos stretching across his forearms, DeMunguia said he had no intention of going quietly that night and left the bar with additional charges of resisting arrest and assaulting a police officer, along with a hospital visit.

A mix-up at a subsequent hearing saw DeMunguia's bail lowered from $75,000 to $7,500 and he was out just a few days later, infuriating local police.

Yesterday, DeMunguia pleaded guilty to aggravated assault under a plea agreement that will see him serve at least four years and three months before becoming eligible for parole.

DeMunguia insists he's mostly just angry, not scared, about returning to prison.

"Most of them know me, most of them fear me," he said.

Espousing "racial purity" hasn't made his life any easier, DeMunguia admits, particularly when he went to jail in 2004 for attacking a black man he claims was stealing from his truck.

Authorities said the victim was simply waiting at a bus stop, and called it a hate crime.

Gloucester City Police Chief George Berglund said DeMunguia is a member of the Aryan Nation and the most dangerous type of criminal in society.

"You can never turn you back on him. You can't blink," he said. "I'm glad he's going away."

 

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