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Internet hate-crime case ends in mistrial
November 22, 1997
Web posted at: 12:06 p.m. EST (1706 GMT)LOS ANGELES (Reuters) -- A mistrial was declared Friday in the federal trial of a man accused of sending threatening electronic mail messages via the Internet to Asian students at a southern California university.
U.S. District Court Judge Alicemarie Stotler took the action in Santa Ana, south of Los Angeles, after the jury said it was deadlocked in the trial of Richard Machado. It was not immediately known if he would be re-tried.
Machado, 19, a naturalized U.S. citizen from El Salvador, was charged with 10 counts of violating a federal law that makes it a crime to use race, ethnicity or nationality to interfere with a federally protected activity -- in this case, attending school.
It was the first such case brought under the federal hate-crimes legislation.
He allegedly sent threatening e-mail messages last year to Asian students at the University of California, Irvine. The former student supposedly blamed Asians for campus crime and threatened to "hunt down and kill" them.
During the trial, Assistant U.S. Attorney Mavis Lee said Machado threatened to kill 59 people "solely because of their race, the color of their skin and their nationality."
She called his e-mail message "hateful, repugnant, degrading and terrifying."
Machado's court-appointed defender contended he was bored and sent the message to provoke a response, but had no intention of carrying out his threat.
Copyright 1997 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
Related story:
- Hate case raises Internet free speech issues - November 9, 1997
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