Three additional charges were lodged against a white man accused of burning down three predominately black churches in southern Louisiana in the past few weeks, local media reported late on Monday.
A judge in the US state added three federal hate crime charges against Holden Matthews, 21, and denied him bond, multiple media accounts reported.
Matthews, a resident of St Landry Parish, the county where the fires occurred, was previously charged with three counts of arson on religious buildings, officials said.
Matthews entered a plea of not guilty on Monday and remains in custody at the St Landry Parish jail, media reports say. A judge set a September trial date. Read more