A judge this month sentenced a Florida man who scrawled racist graffiti on the car of a Vietnamese American family to just one year in jail. He could have received a maximum of 30 years.
A jury convicted Kyle Christensen of Daytona Beach to two counts of criminal mischief with hate crime enhancements on June 8.
The victims from New Smyrna Beach say five days before Christensen vandalized their vehicle, they received a Facebook message telling them they needed to die from rat poison.
“It’s like an act of terror is what it is,” Circuit Judge Dennis Craig told Christiansen during sentencing, according to the Daytona Beach News-Journal. “You have effectively terrorized a family is what you did. Probably without even taking that into consideration, you just needed to act out on your hatred and on your prejudice.”
Christensen, however, had no prior criminal record.
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After serving his jail sentence, Christensen will also have to serve three years of house arrest followed by seven years of probation.
The judge also ordered him to stay away from the victims, keep off the internet except for approved online classes and undergo a mental health evaluation. He must also pay the victims $5,000 in restitution.
“It was more than words,” Craig said. “You already have taken a step beyond the hateful language, threats and words that you used.”
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