PENNSYLVANIA –
A former Penn State University student has been charged with ethnic intimidation
for attacking a student because he was “Middle Eastern.”

Nicholas
Tavella, 20, entered an open guilty plea on for charges stemming from a
December 2015 incident in which he allegedly attacked a student based on his
race.

He pleaded
guilty to charges of felony ethnic intimidation; misdemeanor terroristic
threats; and summary harassment, public drunkenness and purchase, consumption,
possession or transportation of liquor, according to a press release from the
Centre County District Attorney’s Office.

Tavella was a
Penn State student at the time of the attack, but he is not currently listed in
Penn State’s online directory.

Tavella
followed another student on Penn State’s campus and asked the victim if he was
going to rape a girl, according to the release.

Tavella
taunted the victim and asked him why he was trying to get away.

“What are you,
from the Middle East?” Tavella asked the student. He then managed to grab the
victim by his throat and told him  “Don’t
make me put a bullet in your chest.”

Police said in
December that Tavella admitted the attack was racially motivated.

At the time of
the incident, multiple charges were filed against Tavella. A later ethnic
intimidation charge was added to the list of charges.

 “A physical attack motivated by skin color
and/or perceived ethnicity is a simple hate crime and this will not be
tolerated in our community,” Centre County District Attorney Stacy Parks Miller
said.

Tavella is
scheduled to be sentenced on Nov. 18.