A man who agreed to testify against his friends in a fatal gang attack on an Ecuadorean immigrant pleaded guilty Thursday to hate crime charges, telling a judge he knew from the start they wouldn't "get away with it."

"Throw away the knife," Nicholas Hausch says he pleaded with Jeffrey Conroy as they and five others ran from the scene.

Conroy insisted he had washed the blood off the weapon in a puddle, Hausch said, but he doubted they could fool authorities so easily — he had watched too many "Law and Order" episodes to believe that.

"I said, 'We're not going to get away with it,'" Hausch told the judge.

Hausch, 18, pleaded guilty to four counts to settle a nine-count indictment, including conspiracy, gang assault, assault as a hate crime and attempted assault as a hate crime in the Nov. 8, 2008, killing of Marcelo Lucero.

The case has focused attention on a decade-long animosity between the largely white population that settled on Long Island after World War II and a growing influx of Hispanics, many from Central and South America suspected of illegally entering the United States.

He has agreed to testify in upcoming trials against the six others; the district attorney will then make a sentencing recommendation, but Hausch still could face a minimum of five years in prison.