BOSTON (AP) – A member of a prominent North Shore family was acquitted Monday of civil rights violations in his attack with a metal baton on two black girls at a downtown subway stop.

Josiah Spaulding III, 26, who is white, was convicted of two counts of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon for striking the two teenage girls. But Suffolk Superior Court Judge Charles Spurlock, who heard the jury-waived case, acquitted Spaulding of four civil rights and constitutional violations in the attack inside the Park Street MBTA station on Nov. 22, 2002.

Spaulding was among a group of nine people who argued with three black teenagers inside the subway station.

During his trial, several people who were with him testified that he never uttered a racial epithet during the confrontation, but his girlfriend did. The witnesses said one of the black teens, 17, responded by pushing Spaulding’s girlfriend up against the wall, hitting her with a bottle and choking her.

Spaulding pulled out a metal baton and hit the girl on the back of the head, according to the witnesses.

He also hit a second girl who had not been involved in the confrontation, they said.

During the trial, prosecutors described Spaulding as a “skinhead,” and said they found Nazi paraphernalia and white supremacist literature in a locker he rented in Medford.

Jake Wark, a spokesman for Suffolk District Attorney Daniel Conley, said prosecutors were disappointed that Spurlock found that the attack was not racially motivated.

“We believed that his motivation was driven by racial prejudice,” Wark said.

“First and foremost, we are satisfied that the verdict holds the defendant accountable for the beating of these two young women,” Wark said.

Spurlock ordered Spaulding to undergo a 40-day psychiatric evaluation at Bridgewater State Hospital. He faces a maximum of 20 years in prison on the assault charges when he is sentenced on Aug. 25.

Spaulding is the son of Josiah A. Spaulding Jr., president and chief executive of the Wang Center theater in Boston, and the grandson of Josiah A. Spaulding, the founder of Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital and one-time head of the state Republican Party.

AP-ES-07-17-06 1122EDT