Two brothers from South Boston ambushed and beat a 58-year-old homeless man, and the men apparently targeted their victim because he is Latino, police in the Massachusetts capital said.

Scott and Steve Leader, who have extensive criminal records, were charged with assault with a dangerous weapon, indecent exposure and making threats, the Boston Globe noted. Additionally, prosecutors accused Steve Leader of malicious destruction of property over $250 after he allegedly punched and kicked a cell door at the State Police barracks in South Boston.

Suffolk County Assistant District Attorney Andrew Kettlewell described the attack as "vicious and unprovoked."

Although the two suspects pleaded not guilty, Judge Lisa Grant ordered them held without bail.

Massachusetts State Police said the brothers had been returning home from a Boston Red Sox game when they found the victim sleeping near a subway stop. The homeless man later told authorities that he was awakened by two men urinating on his face and that the aggressors subsequently ripped away his blankets and sleeping bag.

"Next thing ... he was getting hit in the face and head," the State Police report detailed. "He remembers being punched several times and hit with (a) metal pole."

Boston Mayor Martin Walsh said the suspects "should be ashamed of themselves," and the city's top prosecutor, Daniel Conley, called the case "sickening."

One of the accused, meanwhile, said he was inspired in part by GOP White House hopeful Donald Trump, who had made disparaging comments about Mexican immigrants in the kickoff speech to his presidential campaign.

Trump, meanwhile, said on Friday that he "would never condone violence" and that the incident in Boston was "terrible," CNN noted.

"We need energy and passion, but we must treat each other with respect," the real-estate tycoon said in a Twitter message.

Hector Sanchez, the chairman of the National Hispanic Leadership Agenda, meanwhile, told The Atlantic that the attack on the homeless man had not surprised him.

"It's a pattern that we have seen over the last decade in the nation with enforcement only policies and this anti-immigrant rhetoric," Sanchez noted.