A Pittsburgh man has been indicted by a grand jury on a federal hate crimes charge after a post-election incident in which he allegedly pummeled an Indian man seated next to him at a bar and said, "things are different now ... I don't want you sitting next to me, you people."

The Department of Justice announced the indictment against 54-year-old Jeffrey Allen Burgess on Thursday in connection with the Nov. 22 incident at a Red Robin in Pittsburgh's South Hills Village shopping mall.

According to WTAE-TV, the incident occurred as Burgess was seated next to a man named Ankur Mehta at the restaurant's bar. Mehta was working on his tablet with his earbuds in and failed to notice Burgess taunting him and using racial and ethnic epithets, the station reported.

According to police, Burgess then "launched an unprovoked attack on the victim as he was seated at the bar," striking Mehta in the face with his elbow and fist multiple times.

KDKA-TV reported that Burgess had mistakenly believed that Mehta was a Muslim of Middle Eastern descent, and used an ethnic slur indicating as much.

Witnesses told police Burgess had grabbed Mehta by the head and punched him. Witnesses also said Mehta was defenseless and unaware of Burgess's impending attack, local stations reported.

Officials later said Mehta was taken to a local hospital with a loose tooth and a cut to his upper lip, while Burgess was arrested on suspicion of ethnic intimidation, simple assault, harassment and public drunkenness by local authorities.

On Thursday, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Pennsylvania announced a grand jury's federal indictment against Burgess for a single count of violating the Matthew Shepard and James Bryd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act.

Before a recent court appearance on the local charges, Burgess blamed alcohol for his actions, adding, "I'm not that kind of person ... It happened and I'm remorseful about it."

The incident came amid a reported spike in hate crimes and ethnic intimidation cases in the wake of the Nov. 8 election. The Southern Poverty Law Center documented 867 "hate incidents" in the 10 days after Donald Trump was elected president, more than 300 of which included direct references to the president-elect or his campaign rhetoric, the group reported.

According to the Washington Post, "the incidents -- documented in the media or reported through a form on the center's website -- included vandalism of places of worship, attacks on Muslim women in headscarves and bullying of Hispanic students in schools."

The Post added that the "Southern Poverty Law Center also counted 23 incidents it classified as 'anti-Trump,' including one in which someone grabbed a man wearing a Trump hat by the neck on a subway in New York."

And while other attempts to track post-election reports of ethnic violence and intimidation have come up with numbers lower than the Southern Poverty Law Center's, advocates say they have no doubt that hate crimes are on the rise nationwide.

This as new research cites a more than 20 percent increase in hate crimes in nine U.S. metropolitan areas in the last year. Trump has condemned such incidents, but often not to the satisfaction of his critics.

Meanwhile, a 2016 report by the Federal Bureau of Investigation showed that ethnic or racially-motivated hate crime incidents in the Pittsburgh area were previously among the highest in Pennsylvania, with 11 such incidents reported there in 2015 compared to Philadelphia's six.

In Pittsburgh, Burgess is facing a statutory maximum sentence of 10 years in prison, a fine of $250,000, or both, if convicted on the federal hate crime count stemming from the Nov. 22 incident in South Hills Village.

PennLive was unable to reach his lawyers for comment Thursday. A non-jury trial has been scheduled in his case for May 1 in the Allegheny Court of Common Pleas, online records indicate.