Costa Mesa man charged with hate crime in incident at Newport Beach 7-Eleven

A Costa Mesa man pleaded not guilty Tuesday to felony charges related to an assault earlier this month at a Newport Beach 7-Eleven that authorities are calling a hate crime.

Danny Martin Loros, 64, was arrested May 7 by the Newport Beach Police Department after allegedly throwing a liquor bottle at the owner of the 7-Eleven on Balboa Boulevard when he was asked to leave the business. The bottle struck the victim in the stomach.

He is alleged to have used racial slurs and made “denigrating” comments about immigrants to an officer.

Loros is charged with one felony count of assault with a deadly weapon other than a firearm and one felony count of violation of civil rights causing violent injury. He is also charged with one felony hate crime enhancement. He faces a maximum sentence of seven years in state prison if convicted on all counts.

Loros is in custody on a bail of $60,000, according to jail records.

“Business owners should be able to run their businesses without fear of being attacked because of how they look,” said Orange County Dist. Atty. Todd Spitzer in a statement.

“Hate crimes are not only devastating for the individual victims, they are also devastating for the entire community because of the fear these kinds of crimes create,” said Spitzer.

A spate of hate crimes have taken place throughout Orange County in the last few months. The district attorney’s office has also filed charges in the case of an Orange man allegedly punched an elderly Asian couple in the head while they walked through a park in April and a Fullerton man that allegedly threw rocks at an Asian woman and her 6-year-old child in March.

Spitzer also announced the formation of a hate crimes unit on Tuesday. Officials said that since 2019, the district’s attorney’s office has prosecuted more than twice the number of hate crimes compared to the number of hate crimes prosecuted in the 25 years previous.

Court records indicate that Loros will appear in court on May 25 at the Harbor Justice Center in Newport Beach.

Support our coverage by becoming a digital subscriber.