Daniel Lee Jones could be facing up to 5 years in prison and fined up to $250-thousand after pleading guilty to a 2008 hate crime.
The Portland Oregon man mailed a hangman’s noose to an Ohio NAACP leader and was charged with using the U.S. postal Service to send a threatening communication to the Lima, Ohio chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the U.S. Justice Department announced.
“A noose is an unmistakable symbol of hate in our nation, and it was used in this case to intimidate an individual for exercising his right to speak out and advocate on behalf of others,” said Thomas E. Perez, assistant attorney general of the Civil Rights Division. “The Department of Justice will vigorously prosecute those who resort to violent threats to silence such advocates, especially when that threat is motivated by hate.”
F.M. Jason Upthegrove, president of the Lima NAACP, received the noose on Valentine’s Day in 2008.
Jones had beef with Upthegrove because he spoke out against police brutality of African-American citizens and criticized Jones’ white supremacist group’s mailing of hate flyers related to the shooting of an African-American woman by a member of the Lima Police Department.
The family of Tanika Wilson later settled with a wrongful death lawsuit for $2.5 million after the police killed her while in search of her boyfriend for suspicion of selling drugs.
Upthegrove said in an article with Toledo Blade,
“I want a message to be sent, I want the message to be severe, and I want him to think – and people who think like him to think – that there are consequences for what they are doing,”
