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If convicted, Ralph Nicoletti, 18, Brian Carranza, 21, and Michael Contreras, 18, could face up to 10 years in prison. They're accused of conspiring to interfere with the civil rights of African Americans on Staten Island.

The allegations are serious. On November 4, election night, when Barack Obama was announced as the next US President, they and a fourth friend, identified by sources as Bryan Garaventa, launched an assault on African Americans.

Ali Kamara, a 17-year-old Liberian native, was walking home in Park Hill when he said the men beat him with a metal pipe and a collapsible police baton. He suffered head and leg injuries.

"I told the judge my son didn't deserve what happened to him because when they beat him up and then was screaming and then he have to jump over a fence for his life," said Jeneba Ladepo, Kamara's mother.

Prosecutors said the violence didn't end there. They allege the men pushed a black man in Port Richmond to the ground and harassed a latino man and asked whom he voted for. They're also accused of assaulting a white man they believed to be black because he was in a black neighborhood, his face hidden by his hooded sweatshirt.

Prosecutors said they meant to drive past him and hit him with the police baton but instead hit him with the car, leaving him in a coma for 45 days. The mother of that man, 38-year-old Ronald Forte, was also in court on Wednesday.

"I'm not strong. I just told them how I feel, what's been going on, that I have to take care of my son now because of a hideous crime of stupidity," said Eileen Forte.

Garaventa and Nicoletti have already been charged on Staten Island with assault as a hate crime and weapons possession.

Carranza, Contreras and Nicoletti are due back in court January 14.