SAN DIEGO - With closing arguments wrapping up Tuesday, it's now up to a jury to sort out just what happened in a midday brawl between an activist and a handful of day laborers at a makeshift hiring site in North County last November.

This morning, jurors will continue deliberating the case facing John Matthew Monti, who is charged with three battery counts and three hate crime counts. He is alleged to have violated the civil rights of two day laborers. A prosecutor said Monti, who has ties to an anti-illegal immigration group, made racially based insults during the alleged attacks.

Monti is also charged with filing a false police report for telling officers he was the one who was attacked.

The 36-year-old Monti has pleaded not guilty to the charges, all of which are misdemeanors.

The case highlights seething tensions between anti-illegal immigration activists and day laborers who for more than a year have confronted one another at hiring sites in North County.

Each side blames the other for starting the brawl that ended up in the middle of busy Rancho Pensaquitos Boulevard about 11 a.m. Nov. 19.

San Diego Deputy City Attorney Scott Pirrello told jurors that Monti started the fight when he allegedly grabbed one of the laborers and chased him into the street. Monti was at the site to photograph day laborers and people who hired them.

During the trial, day laborer Estanislao Gonzales testified that he didn't want his picture taken and tried to leave. He said the sweat shirt he was using to cover his face may have brushed against Monti as he passed him, and that Monti subsequently grabbed his right arm. Gonzales testified that he pulled away and ran, but Monti chased him into the street, knocked him down and beat him.

Monti then battled Gonzales' friends when they came to help, Pirrello said.

But Monti's attorney, Allison Aranda, argued that before the brawl, the day laborers had threatened Monti as he snapped photos, and that the fight started when one of them hit the Los Angeles area schoolteacher from behind.

"It is illogical to accept this theory that Mr. Monti started a fight with nine of them," Aranda said. "By himself?"

The defense attorney questioned why the day laborers had not reported the assault to police and scattered before police arrived at the scene after the fight.

Aranda said Monti was there that day to "provoke discussion and dialogue" about sex trafficking and the role played by residents of the shanty towns where some day laborers live.

Pirrello has said Monti was there to "provoke a fight."

Aranda told the jury during her closing argument that her client has only a "distant connection" with anti-illegal immigration groups.

Prosecutor Pirrello told the jury that, about 15 minutes before the fight, Monti had been on the phone with Jeff Schwilk, the head of the San Diego Minutemen, an Oceanside-based anti-illegal immigration group which has protested at day-labor hiring sites.

Monti has previously said he is a member of the anti-illegal immigration group "Save Our State," which has staged protests at sites across Southern California.

Aranda said the alleged victims and witnesses colluded to try to get their stories straight; she also said they gave inconsistent accounts of the fight.

Pirrello countered that the witness accounts "fit like a glove."

- Contact staff writer Teri Figueroa at (760) 631-6624 or tfigueroa@nctimes.com.