Houston ? Prosecutors said Friday they won’t seek hate crimes charges against two white teens accused of beating a 17-year-old Hispanic boy.

Authorities said the suspects acknowledged that they beat the boy but say it was because he kissed a 12-year-old girl. The teens claimed they were offended at the age difference between the victim and the girl, who also is Hispanic.

Detective Michael Weinel of the Harris County Sheriff’s Department also said the youths were drinking, smoking marijuana and taking the anti-anxiety drug Xanax.

Authorities said the two teens dragged the boy into a yard, where they sodomized him with a plastic pipe from a patio table umbrella and shouted racial slurs.

Prosecutor Mike Trent said the boy also had high levels of toxins in his organs, indicating the attackers may have poured bleach inside the pipe used to sodomize him.

Trent said that adding hate-crime charges to the aggravated sexual assault faced by David Henry Tuck, 18, and Keith Robert Turner, 17, would have no legal effect.

The victim remained in critical condition Friday.