Eastern District of California Blog

46-Month Sentence For Race-Based Assault

A race-based assault on a couple – because the woman is African American and the man is white – has earned the three assailants federal prison terms.

Each had pleaded guilty to his respective role in the brutal, racially motivated attack in 2011, which took place in the parking lot of a Marysville convenience store.

The last of the three to be sentenced, Anthony Merrell Tyler of Yuba City, was given a term Tuesday in Sacramento federal court of three years and 10 months behind bars. As part of his guilty plea in March, Tyler, 34, admitted smashing the windshield of a car occupied by the mixed-race couple, and then joining the two others in pummeling the male victim.

Sacramento Bee, 12/9/14

70-Month Sentence For Racially Motivated Assault

"Perry Sylvester Jackson, 28, of Marysville, was sentenced today by U.S. District Judge John A. Mendez to five years and 10 months in prison for violating the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act for his role in a 2011 racially motivated attack on a white man and an African-American woman."  YubaNet.com, 4/29/14

Hate Crime Charged In Sacramento Federal Court

Federal prosecutors in Sacramento are once again taking on what they describe as a particularly flagrant hate crime.

An indictment returned Jan. 16 by a grand jury and unsealed last week accuses three Yuba County men of an unprovoked attack on a couple because the man is white and the woman is black.

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Hate crimes have been a priority of U.S. Attorney Benjamin Wagner going back to his days as a line prosecutor who handled a number of them and who was the office's hate-crimes coordinator.

Hate crimes, Wagner said Monday, "are intended to send a message of intolerance and instill fear in a larger community. Consequently, it is important that they be aggressively prosecuted and people in the community see that something is being done."

As to the Yuba County case, Wagner said, "In our view this is a pretty egregious incident, and the district attorney up there agreed that a federal prosecution may have a greater impact.

Sacramento Bee, 1/31/13

5-Year Sentence For Attacks Against Planned Parenthood and Mosque

Donny Eugene Mower, 38, of Madera, was sentenced in federal court Monday after his October 2011 guilty pleas to one count of arson, one count of damaging religious property and one count of violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, which makes it a federal crime to damage the property of a reproductive health services facility.

The charges stem from Mower’s lighting a fire inside a Planned Parenthood clinic and throwing a brick at a mosque in Madera.

Mower was sentenced by Judge Lawrence J. O’Neill to five years in prison, to be followed by three years of supervised release. Mower was also ordered to pay more than $26,000 in restitution.  

Merced Sun-Star, 1/9/12

Man Pleads Guilty To Vandalizing Two Churches And A Synagogue In Modesto

A Northern California man has pleaded guilty to vandalizing two churches and a synagogue in Modesto by spray-painting anti-Semitic and anti-Christian slurs.

Andrew Kerber pleaded guilty Monday in federal court in Fresno to conspiring to violate the civil rights of members of Congregation Beth Shalom.

The 22-year-old Chico man also admitted vandalizing Our Lady of Fatima Church and School and the Greek Orthodox Church of the Annunciation by spray-painting the walls in February 2006.

SignOnSanDiego, 1/31/11

18 Months Prison Sentences For White Couple In Hate Crime Attack

"A white, middle-aged couple were each sentenced Tuesday in Sacramento to 18 months in federal prison in connection with their brutal beating of a man at a South Lake Tahoe beach because of his ethnicity and the color of his skin."  Sacramento Bee, 6/30/10.  This came after the two defendants were prosecuted in state court and had already received county jail sentences for misdemeanors.  3/6/09 Blog. The federal sentences were less than half what the government had sought.  

Sacramento Jury Finds Martial Arts Champion Guilty Of Chico Hate Crime

A jury in Sacramento federal court today found a San Francisco man guilty of punching an African American man because of his race and the fact he was enjoying himself at a Chico bar.

The panel of six women and six men deliberated for 2 1/2 hours before finding Eric Loren Clawson guilty of a hate-based violation of Carl Whitfield's federal civil rights.

Sacramento Bee, 3/24/10.  Full story here: Sacramento Bee, 3/25/10