On this date in 2004 Chief Judge Joe Billy McDade of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of Illinois sentenced Charles Lambert, 46, of Macomb, Illinois, to thirty-seven months in prison for constructing, placing and burning a cross in front of the home of an interracial couple living in Macomb. Forest L. Hatley, 30, a co-defendant of Lambert’s, was sentenced to forty-one months imprisonment and three years of supervised release. Lambert completed his prison sentence on December 19, 2005, and Hatley completed his on May 2, 2008.

Raymund Catolico, 39, was found murdered in his Kettner Blvd., apartment in San Diego, California, on this date in 2006. His body found stuffed under his bathroom sink of his Little Italy apartment, Mr. Catolico was apparently choked to death two days earlier. 19-year-old James Hardy, a U.S. Marine, was arrested for the homicide two days later after the discovery of Mr. Catolico's body, and the Camp Pendleton marine was charged with murder and with committing a hate crime. Absent without leave at the time of the murder, Hardy apparently had sex with his victim prior to the homicide and he is alleged to have used Mr. Catolico's credit card, to have purchased fast food, and to have played computer games on Mr. Catolico's computer following the murder. Hardy pleaded guilty to the murder in exchange for the hate crime charge against him being dropped, and in 2007, Hardy received a 15-year prison term. Hardy will be five years younger than his victim was at the time of his murder at the time of his release from prison, unless he is paroled prior to the completion of his sentence.

On this date in 2008, in Columbia, Tennessee (Maury County), hate crime arsonists torched the Islamic Center, that city’s mosque, and spray-painted the outside walls of the mosque with swastikas and the phrases “white power” and “we run the world”. The mosque, which has a congregation of about 20 worshippers, was destroyed by the fire. Police arrested Jonathan Edward Stone, 19, Michael Corey Golden, 23, and Eric Ian Baker, 32, all of Columbia, Tennessee. The First Presbyterian Church of Columbia raised $1,000 for the mosque and offered space on Fridays for the Muslim worshippers. On February 12, 2008, a federal felony criminal complaint was filed in Nashville, Tennessee, against Baker, Golden, and Stone, who are said to be members of a white supremacist group known as The Aryan Alliance, for their roles in the arson. The three were indicted on March 26, 2008. On November 3, 2008, Golden and Stone pleaded guilty in a federal court in Nashville, Tennessee; they faced up to 30 years in prison. Michael Golden was sentenced to 171 months in prison, and Jonathan Stone has not yet been sentenced. On September 22, 2009, Eric Baker pleaded guilty. Like his co-conspirators, Baker faced up to 30 years in federal prison for damaging religious property and for using fire and an explosive device to commit a federal felony offense. However, on March 25, 2010, Judge Robert L. Echols sentenced Eric Ian Baker, 34, to 183 months in prison, about half the maximum sentence.

In Levittown (Bucks County), Pennsylvania, on this date in 2008, vandals desecrated Our Lady of Perpetual Help at 1773 Woodbourne Road. They spray-painted Satanic and anti-religious remarks, such as "God is Dead" and scrawled obscene symbols on the Catholic church's walls in addition to defacing a statue of the Virgin Mary. State and FBI investigators refused to call the graffiti attack a hate crime, however. FBI Agent Jerri Williams reportedly said of the incident, “For it to be motivated by a bias, that bias has to be very clear. In some cases, it's very easy to see what that bias is. If you have the N word spray painted on the side of an African-American's home, or a swastika on a synagogue. But for this particular incident, you ask: Is it somebody who has something against Catholics or religion generally? It's hard to determine. Based on the information we have, and that this church has been vandalized in the past, the U.S. Attorney's Office says this does not rise to the level of hate crime because it does not clearly indicate that the crime was motivated by bias.” Two unnamed minors along with Harry Stetson III, 18, a senior at Bucks County Technical High School in Bristol Township, and Nicholas Cesari, 18, a Pennsbury High School student were charged with institutional vandalism and criminal conspiracy, third-degree felonies, but they were not charged with a hate crime. If convicted, each adult defendant could get seven years in prison.

Near the corner of Somerset Street near North Middaugh Street in Somerville, New Jersey, on this date in 2008, a black man, Tyler L. Smith, 22, singled out a white 16-year-old male and used racial slurs while physically assaulting the Bridgewater, New Jersey, boy and stealing his bicycle as the victim was walking with two African-American friends. The victim's two black teenaged friends had their lives threatened by Smith when they tried to intervene. Smith was charged with second-degree robbery, two counts of third-degree terroristic threats and first-degree bias intimidation. He was jailed on $50,000 cash bail at the Somerset County Jail, and on March 12, 2008, eleven days after his twenty-third birthday, he was indicted. On November 21, 2008, Smith, 23, pleaded guilty to all charges. On January 30, 2009, Smith will be sentenced to 16 years in a New Jersey State Prison of which he must serve at least eight-and-a-half years (at which point he becomes parole eligible).

On this date in 2010 in Cerulean, Kentucky, a white man, Levell M. Washington, 18, of Cerulean, was arrested along with three unnamed teenagers by the Kentucky State Police and charged with multiple felonies for their alleged involvement in ten masked and armed home invasion-type robberies and burglaries targeting Amish/Mennonite families. A fourth unnamed juvenile was arrested and similarly charged on February 11, 2010. Police called the three Todd County crimes and the seven Christian County crimes that took place from February 6-9, 2010, hate crimes because the victims were selected on the basis of their religion, although to our knowledge no hate crime charges were filed against those arrested.