Melanie Harris, 59, hurled antisemitic slurs, vowed violence, including beheadings, and used “vile and inflammatory language,” according to a Miami-based FBI agent.

Harris, who pleaded guilty in March, was sentenced by a Miami judge to 32 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release for intentionally transmitting a threatening communication in interstate commerce. The Federal Bureau of Prisons will determine where Harris will serve her sentence.

A call and email to the attorney representing Harris were not returned.

Markenzy Lapointe, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida, said Harris’ ”antisemitic threats terrorized a Jewish family.”

“Her hate-filled telephone calls and voicemails were abhorrent,” Lapointe said in a statement. “No one should live in fear of threats, harassment and hate-fueled violence.”

The calls began in February 2019, according to court documents — just months after Robert Bowers shot and killed 11 worshipers at the Pittsburgh synagogue on Oct. 27, 2018. Bowers, who has since been convicted and sentenced to death, espoused white supremacist views and ranted about his hatred of Jews online prior to the shooting.

Harris cloaked her identity using the *67 feature, which blocks caller identification, and left voicemails laden “with antisemitic and harassing language,” according to court documents.

She initially placed three calls in a span of three minutes, first to Tree of Life and then twice calling a person identified in court documents as Victim No. 1, the former executive director of Tree of Life who was then living in the Pittsburgh area.

Between February 2019 and March 2022, Harris called Victim No. 1 an additional 53 times, according to court records. An analysis presented in court demonstrated that Harris attempted 190 calls between October 2022 and February 2023, including 129 in November. Many of those calls, however, were unanswered or immediately hung up on, according to court documents.

All calls to Victim No. 1 were made from Harris’ Riverside home, authorities said.

Harris left 15 voicemails for Victim No. 1 on Oct. 3, 2022, including four threatening and antisemitic messages. In one, court documents say, Harris twice threatened to decapitate Victim No. 1’s stepchild, whom she referred to using an antisemitic slur, according to court documents.

That same day, Harris made three additional calls to Victim No. 1, all advocating similar violence against him and his family, according to court documents.

On Nov. 22, Harris threatened in another voicemail to stab Victim No. 1, according to court documents. There was an additional call and threat on Dec. 6.

In voicemails left at Tree of Life, she gloated about the shooting of Jewish grandmas, using a slur, according to court documents. Harris also lobbed antisemitic slurs at the adult child and stepchild of Victim No. 1 and his wife, court documents say.

Neither the victims nor Harris knew each other, court documents and prosecutors said. Harris was not believed to have any ties to Tree of Life.

Victim No. 1 and his wife eventually left Pennsylvania and moved to Broward County, Fla. Victim No. 1, however, did not change his cell number, wishing to keep ties with the Pittsburgh community, according to court documents.

Authorities say Harris also made references to Anne Frank’s death at the hands of the Nazis, and Jews being sent back to Auschwitz. In one call played in court, Harris repeatedly screamed, “Sieg Heil, [Jew] killers,” using a slur, before hanging up, according to court documents.

She was arrested on March 4, 2023.

“The nature of her threats of violence towards the victims and their faith were clearly meant to evoke a climate of fear and intimidation,” Jeffrey B. Veltri, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Miami field office, said in a statement. “Such conduct cannot be tolerated.”

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Melanie Harris was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Roy K. Altman during a hearing in Miami.

“Defendant Melanie Harris’ antisemitic threats terrorized a Jewish family,” stated U.S. Attorney Markenzy Lapointe for the Southern District of Florida.

According to the facts admitted at her change-of-plea hearing, Harris made multiple calls on Oct. 3, 2022 to victim 1’s cell phone and left four separate threatening voice mails with intent to communicate a true threat and with the knowledge that the communications would be seen as true threats.

In one of the four voicemails, Harris said “I’ll cut your f—— head off k—.” The term has been used as an anti-Jewish slur.

Neither victim 1 nor his wife, victim 2, knew the identity of the person calling with the threatening and harassing calls and voicemails, nor did they know where the calls were coming from because Harris concealed her phone number from being detected by a caller identification system, leaving the victims bereft of any knowledge of who and where the harasser was, putting them in constant fear for their lives until Harris’ arrest in March 2023.

The calls originated from Riverside, where Harris lived at the time, and were received by victim 1’s phone in the Southern District of Florida.

For over four years, Harris harassed and threatened three victims by making more than 240 calls to victim 1, leaving messages and engaging in conversations in which she unleashed antisemitic hate and direct threats against him, his family and Jews in general.

In these calls and voicemails, Harris made incessant references to the congregants murdered in the October 2018 massacre at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh.

Harris’ four-year onslaught of harassment and threats of the victims was compounded by the fact that until July 2018, victim 1 had been the executive director of the Tree of Life for over 20 years while his wife and her adult child were all longtime members of and closely associated with the synagogue.

On the same day Harris began her calls to victim 1, she also began calling the Tree of Life, leaving virtually identical hate-filled antisemitic messages referencing the deaths of elderly worshipers.

The FBI’s Miami Area Corruption Task Force, which also investigates civil rights violations, investigated the case. FBI Pittsburgh, FBI Los Angeles Riverside Resident Agency and the Riverside Police Department assisted in the investigation.

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Edward N. Stamm and Nardia Haye prosecuted the case, which was indicted by Executive Assistant U.S. Attorney Harry C. Wallace, Jr.

“Melanie Harris sent threatening communications to a Jewish family using vile and inflammatory language. The nature of her threats of violence towards the victims and their faith were clearly meant to evoke a climate of fear and intimidation. Such conduct cannot be tolerated,” said Special Agent in Charge Jeffrey B. Veltri of the FBI Miami Field Office.

“Violence through words or actions is unacceptable and the FBI will continue to do everything we can to identify, arrest, and bring to justice those who engage in similar conduct,” Veltri said.

In September 2022, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland started the United Against Hate program to convene local forums that connect community groups to federal, state and local law enforcement to increase community understanding and reporting of hate crimes, build trust between law enforcement and communities and create and strengthen alliances between law enforcement and other government partners and community groups to combat unlawful acts of hate. More information on the United Against Hate program can be found at justice.gov/hatecrimes/spotlight/united-against-hate.

Anyone with information about a possible threat or believing to be a victim of a hate crime was encouraged to contact 911 and the FBI at fbi.gov/tips or at 800-225-5324.

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A Riverside jury deliberated nearly two days before finding Steven Daniel Carrillo, 24, of Riverside guilty of killing Derrion Thomas of Rialto in 2020.

Along with the murder count, jurors convicted Carrillo of attempted murder, special-circumstance allegations of killing for the benefit of a criminal street gang and perpetrating a hate crime, as well as sentence-enhancing gun and great bodily injury allegations.

They acquitted him of one attempted murder charge.

Jurors started deliberations Wednesday morning, after the prosecution and defense delivered closing arguments Tuesday afternoon. The panel announced it had reached a verdict late Thursday afternoon.

Riverside County Superior Court Judge Jerry Yang scheduled a sentencing hearing for June 28 at the Riverside Hall of Justice. Carrillo, who is being held without bail at the Robert Presley Jail, is facing life in prison without the possibility of parole.

The defendant is a documented member of Riverside’s oldest street gang, prevalent in the area along the University Avenue corridor, authorities said.

In late October 2020, Carrillo was staying with fellow gang members in a room at the Motel 6 near the intersection of Iowa and University avenues, according to briefs filed by the District Attorney’s Office and the defense.

Staying in a room nearby were Sharon Mayweather, Isaiah Smith and Thomas, all related. On Oct. 24, Mayweather was released from the downtown Riverside jail, where she had been held for unspecified reasons, and she became intoxicated at the motel, according to court papers.

“She was hanging around Mr. Carrillo’s (black Jaguar) in the parking lot, and he told her to get away from his vehicle,” according to the defense.

There was a hostile exchange before she returned to her room.

Two days later, on the night of Oct. 26, Thomas and Smith were preparing to drive in the latter’s Saturn sedan to pick up food, and Mayweather was trailing behind when she encountered Carrillo in his car, leading to another confrontation, during which she told Smith and Thomas the defendant had threatened her. They doubted her claims and “ushered” her into the car, the defense said.

Prosecutors said the defendant was incensed, possibly because he had been publicly challenged by a woman in front of three juvenile gang members.

Although his Jaguar had been pointed in the direction opposite to where the victims were going, he turned around and pursued them eastbound on University, according to the prosecution’s brief.

Court papers state the victims tried to avoid further contact, racing through traffic lights until they reached the left turn lane to go into the Food4Less grocery store parking lot at University and Chicago avenues. Carrillo pulled alongside and shouted profanity-laced challenges, at which point Thomas pulled a semiautomatic handgun and “fired up to 11 rounds at Mr. Carrillo,” the defense said.

The Jaguar’s driver’s side window was blown out, but Carrillo and the youths with him were not hit. Smith tried to pull his own pistol out of his front pocket, but the trigger caught on his pants, and he shot himself in the right thigh, according to court documents.

Carrillo pulled his own 9mm pistol and fired into the Saturn, striking Thomas twice, including a fatal wound to the chest, according to the prosecution. Smith tried to flee when the shots were fired but crashed into a traffic sign. He stumbled out of the car and hobbled away to get help.

Mayweather was not injured. Thomas stepped out of the car and collapsed.

Carrillo fled the scene.

Thomas was taken to Riverside Community Hospital, where he was pronounced dead on arrival. Smith underwent surgery to his leg and fully recovered.

Relying on security surveillance video from the motel and businesses along University, Riverside police detectives were able to identify the perpetrator, and an arrest warrant was served on him without incident two weeks later at a residence in the 2300 block of Candlestick Way in Perris.

Investigators seized his journal, in which he “bragged about the shooting,” according to the prosecution’s brief, which said he referred to the victims as “snails” and wrote that “there is a sort of war” between groups.

“The defendant noted he was proud he was able to show the little homies how to gang bang,” the brief said.

The defense blamed Mayweather for provoking the altercation, additionally asserting Carrillo was not the one who initiated violence that night.

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File # MV232210443

Details:

On Wednesday, August 9, 2023, at about 10:45 p.m., deputies from the Moreno Valley Sheriff’s Station received a call for service regarding harassing phone calls. During the investigation, deputies learned the suspect and the victim attended the same high school, that a series of messages were sent to the victim that rose to the level of a hate crime, and that the messages the victim received were a credible threat.

Based upon this, investigators from the Moreno Valley Sheriff’s Station and Moreno Valley Sheriff’s Station Special Enforcement Team served a search warrant at a residence on the 15000 block of Ninya Avenue, Moreno Valley. During the service of the search warrant, a handgun and fireworks were located. The suspect, who is a 17-year-old juvenile was taken into custody and booked into juvenile hall for criminal threats, hate crimes, and harassing phone calls.

Anyone with additional information related to this case is encouraged to contact Investigator Allen at the Moreno Valley Sheriff’s Station by calling (951) 486-6700.

For media inquiries regarding this incident please contact the Media Information Bureau.

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File # G230900067

Details:

On March 31, 2023, at 5:55 P.M., deputies assigned to the Norco Sheriff’s Station responded to a report of two males fighting in a parking lot in the 3100 block of Hamner Avenue, Norco. Upon arrival, deputies located one of the males, who stated his wife had been struck by the suspect’s vehicle and fled the scene. Further investigation revealed an unidentified white male adult used racial slurs toward the victim and her family. The victim exited her vehicle to address what was being said, at which point the suspect continued to use racial slurs and threatened to assault the victim. The suspect struck the victim with his vehicle, and the victim’s husband exited their vehicle and struck the suspect in defense of his wife. The suspect fled from the area in a silver older model four-door vehicle on Hamner Avenue.

The victim sustained non-life-threatening injuries to her lower legs and was treated at the scene by paramedics. Deputies and Investigators are currently interviewing witnesses and reviewing evidence to identify the suspect.

Anyone with information regarding this incident is asked to contact the Norco Sheriff Station at (951) 270-5673, or Investigator Ryan Morgan at (951) 955-2600.

For media inquiries regarding this incident please contact the Media Information Bureau.

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Our country has been besieged with hate crimes in the last ten years. Last night there was another one in a city with all kinds of security, including a critical United States Air Force facility. Take a look and prepare:

2012: The Dikh Gurdwara shooting in Wisconsin – the shooter, a skinhead band leader who had a history with white supremacy. It was categorized as domestic terrorism by authorities.

2013: The Boston Marathon Bombing killed three and injured 264. Two brothers were responsible. One was killed in a gun battle with police and the other received a death sentence.

2015: The Charleston Church Massacre, the gunman author of a racist and anti-Semitic manifesto prior to the attack was convicted in December 2016 on charges of federal murder, attempted murder and hate crimes.

2016: The June 26th, 2016 shooting spree at the Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, by Omar Matee, who killed 49 people and wounded 53 more. He claimed his attack in the name of ISIS, although he had no previous connection with ISIS.

2017: White supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, by anti-semites shouting, “Jews will not replace us.” There were scores of injuries and three deaths—a senseless attack by white supremacists.

2018: Pittsburgh synagogue shooting is the deadliest attack on Jews in U.S. History. The attack at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh by an avowed White Supremacist.

2019: White supremacist shootings in El Paso, Texas that left 22 people dead and 26 injured.

2022: The most recent hate crime occurred at a gay nightclub in Colorado Springs on November 20th. The perpetrator, 22-year-old Anderson Lee Aldrich is well known for his bad behavior by the police over a period of years.

There have been hundreds of such shootings with fewer casualties. Families like yours and mine are losing loved ones and all we hear is how terrible it is. When will we, the people who love this country, put an end to it? These killers have all had encounters with the authorities at some time in their past and are well known. Somebody is not watching for them to strike in a larger manner, killing off more innocent people.

You say, “It couldn’t happen in the San Jacinto Valley.” Really? Why are we so isolated from hate? I hear hate-mongers every day in our coffee shops. There isn’t a club owner in this valley that isn’t on edge that such a thing could and may well happen to us. What do we do then? We can’t go on forever saying it can’t happen to us. Wake up, folks – disaster could be just around the corner and it may be one of your beloved ones out having a good time at night which could be missing from your holiday dinner table. Just sayin’

rustystrait@alice-petersen

• DISCLAIMER: The opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by the various author’s articles on this Opinion piece or elsewhere online or in the newspaper where we have articles with the header “COLUMN/EDITORIAL & OPINION” do not necessarily reflect the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints or official policies of the Publisher, Editor, Reporters or anybody else in the Staff of the Hemet and San Jacinto Chronicle Newspaper.

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The total of 635 hate crimes reported in 2020 was a 20% increase over the previous year, and 61% were racist crimes, the report said.

African Americans, who are just 9% of the county population, were 42% of racial crime victims, according to the report. Anti-Black crimes increased 35% to 169.

Anti-Latino crimes were up 58% to 106 and anti-white crimes jumped to 50, a 127% increase. The report’s statistics also reflected the trend of hate crimes targeting Asians. Anti-Asian crimes increased 76%, from 25 to 44.

“This report is another alarming reminder that we have a long way to go in building a more inclusive and just society,” said Hilda L. Solis, chair of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors.

The county Commission on Human Relations has produced a report on hate crimes since 1980. The commission compiles and analyzes data from law enforcement agencies, educational institutions and community-based organizations.

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NEW YORK (AP) — More than half a century since they were modernized, hate crime laws in the U.S. are inconsistent and provide incomplete methods for addressing bias-motivated violence, according to a new report by advocates for better protections.

The report, first shared with The Associated Press ahead of its Wednesday release, is a comprehensive national review of hate crime laws that shows gaps and variances in the laws. Due to the complexity of hate violence, certain statutes meant to protect racial minorities and marginalized groups are less effective, as a consequence of bias in the criminal justice system, the report says.

The existing laws can even discourage hate crime victims from coming forward, advocates say in the report, which also cites widespread flaws in the collection and reporting of data.

“We really think this is the first report to bring together a state-by-state analysis along so many dimensions … with a focus on racial justice and criminal justice reform,” said Naomi Goldberg, LGBTQ program director for the Movement Advancement Project, which authored the report in partnership with over 15 national civil rights groups.

The coalition of civil rights organizations includes Asian Americans Advancing Justice – AAJC, the National Center for Transgender Equality and the Southern Poverty Law Center. Goldberg described it as an unprecedented collaboration in the advocacy space.

The report includes a foreword by Judy Shepard, president of the Matthew Shepard Foundation, named for her son whose murder in 1998 led to LGBTQ protection in the federal legislation.

“Although we know that hate crime laws are important and have been successful in holding offenders accountable, we also know that they can and should be more impactful,” Shepard wrote in the foreword.

The report’s release comes after a more-than-yearlong focus on COVID-era hate violence directed at Asian Americans and Asian immigrants, and ahead of the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terror attacks, which saw an uptick in anti-Muslim and anti-Sikh attacks.

On Tuesday, a man accused of killing eight people, mostly women of Asian descent, at Atlanta-area massage businesses pleaded guilty to murder in four of the killings. The man received a sentence of life imprisonment. A prosecutor on the case has not linked a hate motivation to the killings.

The FBI said the U.S. reached a 10-year high in reported hate crimes in 2019. Earlier this year, the SPLC said the number of active hate groups in the U.S. declined as far-right extremists migrated further to online networks that are harder to track.

The majority of all U.S. hate crimes are committed by white people, according to available data, and the majority of all hate crimes are motivated by racial or ethnic bias. But data also show that hate crimes reported by state law enforcement to the FBI disproportionately list Black Americans as the perpetrators.

According to the report, in at least 13 states, law enforcement-recorded hate crimes listed Black offenders at a rate roughly 1.6 to 3.6 times greater than the size of the state’s Black population.

“These repeated disparities … show that — despite the fact that people of color are far more likely to be the victims of hate violence — the instances of hate violence that are actually documented by police … are disproportionately those alleged to have been committed by Black people,” the report states.

As racist attacks on Asian Americans and Asian immigrants gained widespread attention in recent months, so did a false perception that Black Americans were the main culprits of such attacks.

“We don’t have a true and accurate understanding of what anti-Asian hate during the pandemic has looked like,” said Marita Etcubañez, senior director for strategic initiatives at Asian Americans Advancing Justice – AAJC in Washington D.C.

“But we do know that these commonly discussed perceptions that the perpetrators of anti-Asian hate are mainly Black or African American are not accurate,” she said.

Etcubañez added that a lack of accurate hate crime statistics is what inspired passage of the Jabara-Heyer NO HATE Act, as part of the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act. Named for Khalid Jabara and Heather Heyer, whose hate-motivated killings were prosecuted as hate crimes but not counted in hate statistics, the legislation aims to improve hate crime data collection by law enforcement.

The report on hate crime laws also highlights a growing politicization of such legislation. Following the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement and street confrontations between protesters and police in the last several years, conservative lawmakers in a handful of states have either changed or attempted to change hate crime laws by adding police officers as a protected category.

“I think that’s a terrible, terrible approach,” said SPLC president and CEO Margaret Huang.

“Those laws that are trying to include law enforcement in the category of hate crimes are actually taking away from the definition of hate crimes and the focus on how we prevent these things,” she said.

The nation’s earliest protections against hate-motivated violence were passed after the Civil War, amid a rise in white supremacist violence against formerly enslaved Africans. Modernization of federal hate crime legislation happened in 1968, and has since expanded to 46 states, D.C., Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Arkansas, South Carolina and Wyoming are the only states without hate crime statutes.

In the report, advocates say current hate crime laws can be improved by shifting the focus away from strictly criminal punishment for violation of the statutes to allowing for remedies in civil court. They also call for investment in the social safety net to help reduce poverty and vulnerability caused by systemic racism.

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SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California lawmakers said Wednesday that they are seeking $200 million over the next three years to fight hate crimes against Asian Americans that have increased since the coronavirus entered the U.S. after originating in China.

More than half of the money would go for grants to nonprofit and community groups that provide legal services, health care, mental health, victim compensation or counseling. Also eligible would be groups providing escorts for older residents who fear attacks and organizations that provide education on systemic racism.

Funding of $10 million would be provided for a statewide hate crimes hotline to collect reports in victims’ own languages and to direct them to police or legal, health or mental health services.

Another $20 million would help cultural enclaves including traditional Chinatowns, Japantowns, Koreatowns, and Little Manilas.

The proposal comes from the California Asian & Pacific Islander Legislative Caucus, which has 10 members in the 120-member state Legislature. The caucus includes Phil Ting, a Democrat from San Francisco who heads the Assembly Budget Committee, and members said they’ve had early support from other budgeting and Democratic leaders who control the Legislature.

“We want to address not only, of course, the recent events of hate directed toward our community, but also to recognize longstanding issues in terms of access for our community to public services, government services,” said the caucus chairman, Democratic Sen. Richard Pan of Sacramento.

The caucus is seeking the money as Gov. Gavin Newsom and lawmakers stake out their positions this week on spending what the governor said will be a $76 billion budget surplus. Lawmakers have until June 15 to approve a budget for the fiscal year that starts July 1.

The caucus’ plan includes funding to help children of Asian and Pacific Islander descent in schools, including combating school bullying; for the organization Stop AAPI Hate, which the lawmakers said is the first to collect data on hate crimes in victims’ own languages; and to create a California Interpreters Corps of state workers who can help residents in their own languages.

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One of two men accused of fatally assaulting a 31-year-old man in a racially motivated attack outside a Hemet bar has pleaded not guilty to murder and other charges.

Ernesto Gonzales, 29, of Hemet allegedly joined 32-year-old Angel Melesio Sanchez, also of Hemet, in killing Andre Dyshawn Childress of San Jacinto in December.

Along with murder, Gonzales is charged with sentence-enhancing allegations of committing a hate crime and using a knife in the commission of a violent felony.

He was arraigned Thursday before Riverside County Superior Court Judge Timothy Hollenhorst, who scheduled a felony settlement conference for April 19 at the Banning Justice Center.

Gonzales is being held on $1 million bail at the Smith Correctional Facility in Banning.

Sanchez, who was arraigned last month on identical charges, is being held on $1 million bail at the Byrd Detention Center in Murrieta.

According to Hemet police Lt. Nathan Miller, shortly after midnight on Dec. 28, Sanchez and Gonzales were involved in an unspecified dispute with Childress and another man, identified in court documents only as “R.M.,” all of whom were inside the bar, located near the intersection of Carmalita Street and Florida Avenue.

The defendants and victims soon exited the pub and carried their argument into the street, culminating in the fatal assault, Miller alleged.

He said patrol officers were flagged down by a passerby and found Childress mortally wounded. Paramedics pronounced him dead at the scene moments later. The other victim, R.M., suffered undisclosed injuries from which he has since recovered.

Relying on security surveillance video from surrounding businesses and eyewitness accounts, Sanchez and Gonzales were ultimately identified as the alleged perpetrators, according to the lieutenant.

Sanchez was arrested without incident on the night of Dec. 28, and Gonzales was taken into custody three days later.

Court documents show Sanchez has prior convictions for illegally manufacturing a weapon and driving under the influence.

Gonzales has no documented prior felony convictions in Riverside County.

City News Service • Contributed

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