A man convicted of scrawling racist slurs on the vehicles of Asian Americans and leaving nails in their driveway could be sentenced to 30 years in prison, reports the News-Journal.
A jury this week convicted Kyle Christiansen, 34, of Daytona Beach, FL of two counts of criminal mischief with hate crime enhancements. Those enhancements tripled the potential sentence he could get at his sentencing hearing on July 13.
Authorities say Christensen caused $5,000 in damages to the vehicles he left slurs on in what was determined to be racially motivated, according to Click on Orlando.
“Bigotry exists in our communities. It is important to shine a light on it when we can so that folks can see its ugly face,” State Attorney R.J. Larizza said after the verdict, reported News Daytona Beach.
News Journal online reports the incidents occurred on July 29. Five days earlier the victims say they received a Facebook message containing racial slurs against Vietnamese Americans and a threat they needed to die by rat poison. Authorities allege Christensen had been in the victim’s dental office the day before that Facebook message. He was a new patient and may had been surprised she was Asian, the victim told authorities. The victim does not have an Asian surname.
“He kept on saying this office isn’t what it seems and he would never expand on that and so that was that,” the woman said. She described Christensen as extremely rude to the point of making her assistant cry.
The same Facebook account warned he would stab the first Filipino he saw because of the way his brother was treated while in the Philippines.
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