Appellate Court OKs Housing Law Use in Racial Threats Case
SAN FRANCISCO — A federal appeals court ruled Monday that the federal Fair Housing Act can be used to protect an Idaho adoption agency director whose attempts to find homes for black and Asian children in western Idaho were met with racially motivated threats of violence.
The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated criminal charges against Keith Dwayne Gilbert, who allegedly mailed threats to the director of adoption in Idaho and made threats against several black children in Coeur d’Alene and Post Falls, Ida.
Gilbert, linked with white supremacist groups in northwestern Idaho, is serving a nine-year prison term in Idaho State Prison at Boise for tax fraud, according to his attorney, Kim Lindquist.
The Fair Housing Act forbids threats of violence or intimidation against anyone aiding minority placement in “dwellings.”
A district court judge had held that adoption agencies were concerned with placement in families, not “dwellings,” and thus the law could not be used against Gilbert.
The appeals court disagreed.
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