The U.S. Department of Justice announced Tuesday that a Hurricane man has pleaded guilty in the U.S. District Court for the District of Utah to a federal hate crime.
70-year-old Robert Keller admitted he wrote a note to two Caucasian family members of an interracial family in Hurricane, threatening to kill them if they did not make their African American family member leave their home. Carlie Christensen is Acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Utah. She says this case serves as a horrifying reminder that racial intolerance stills exists in some communities.
“Hate crimes are bad for everybody, it’s bad for a community, it’s bad for the victims of the crime. And unfortunately it may take criminal prosecutions to address this kind of conduct and that’s where we found ourselves in this particular case,” says Christensen.
Sentencing is scheduled for December 1st. Keller faces a maximum penalty of one year in prison.