COEUR d'ALENE - The jury trial for three men facing hate crime charges begins today.

Brothers Ira Tankovich, 48, William Tankovich, 49, and Frank Tankovich, 46, have each been charged with one count of malicious harassment - or hate crime - and one count of conspiracy to commit malicious harassment, stemming from a pair of confrontations outside a Hispanic man's Coeur d'Alene home Aug. 16.

The jury was selected Monday, and pretrial motions are scheduled to begin at 8:30 a.m. before 1st District Judge John Luster. Opening arguments would begin after that.

It has been scheduled for a two-week trial, according to the Kootenai County Courthouse schedule.

The hate crime charges, which carry up to 5 years in prison and up to $5,000 in fines, come from an incident at the home of Kenneth H. Requena in the 1900 block of E. Pennsylvania Avenue last summer.

According to Coeur d'Alene police reports, Ira Tankovich, who has a star with the word "ARYAN" tattooed on his left calf and a star with the word "PRIDE" tattooed on his right calf, was arrested in August after Requena and his wife told police he had been approached outside his home by Ira Tankovich and his brothers in a truck decorated with swastikas and the words "born to kill" on it.

Requena then showed Tankovich the loaded gun he held at his side and told the suspects to leave, according to police reports.

The men then left the scene, claiming they would be back. Around 20 minutes later, two of the men returned to the victim's house with a large dog, challenging him to an altercation and yelling racial slurs, according to reports.

When police arrived, they detained the two men and arrested Ira Tankovich, who was coming near the victim's home from an opposite direction. He had a knife in his pocket and police later seized a gun he had thrown from his possession before the arrest, police reports state.

At the time of the arrest, Tankovich was described as "belligerently intoxicated," swearing, and addressing the victim in ethnic slurs.

Ira Tankovich also told officers at the scene he would "take care of the situation himself," according to reports.

Tankovich is wanted in California for parole violations and has a felony on his record.

He is in Kootenai County jail on a $250,000 bond for the harassment charges and another $250,000 bond for the weapons charge. The weapons charge is set to go to trial May 18.

Frank Tankovich is being held on a $70,000 bond for the hate crime charges, while William Tankovich posted a $70,000 bond back in December, according to jail records.