Man Guilty in E-Mail Hate Crime

SANTA ANA —  In the nation’s first successful prosecution of a hate crime on the Internet, an expelled university student was found guilty Tuesday of violating the civil rights of Asian students at UC Irvine by sending e-mail threatening to kill them if they didn’t quit the school.

Prosecutors hailed the verdict in the retrial of 20-year-old Richard J. Machado as a victory for federal authorities seeking to police the Internet against hatemongers and racist groups.

“This verdict shows that high-tech hate is not going to be tolerated,” said Assistant U. S. Atty. Michael J. Gennaco, who prosecuted the case. “A line does have to be drawn in the world of cyberspace. If you cross that line and threaten people, you are going to be subject to criminal penalties.”

At his first trial in November, jurors deadlocked 9 to 3 in favor of acquittal. In the retrial, a jury of eight women and four men deliberated for less than a day before finding Machado guilty of interfering with students’ rights to attend a public university. Jurors deadlocked 9 to 3 in favor of conviction on a second, identical count.

Machado showed no emotion when the verdict was read.

Because his conviction carries a maximum sentence of one year in prison and he has served more time than that in custody, Machado could be set free as early as Friday, when he appears for sentencing before U. S. District Court Judge Alicemarie H. Stotler.

Gennaco, head of the civil rights division of the U. S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles, hinted that prosecutors would now be more likely to step in and prosecute computer users who stalk or threaten others in cyberspace.

“We have a number of ongoing investigations regarding allegations of threats on the Internet,” Gennaco said. “Now we have some guidance from 12 people that the government can step in and enforce laws on the Internet.”

Machado’s trial had been seen as a test case.

To prosecute Machado, prosecutors turned to civil rights laws enacted in the 1960s to prevent Southerners from standing in the way of school desegregation.

Machado violated students’ civil rights, prosecutors contended, when he hunched over a computer in UC Irvine’s engineering building on Sept. 20, 1996, and sent an anonymous e-mail message to about 60 mainly Asian students.

The chilling message, signed “Asian Hater,” warned that all Asians should leave UC Irvine or the sender would “hunt all of you down.”

“I personally will make it my [life’s work] to find and kill every one of you personally. OK? That’s how determined I am. Do you hear me?”

Apparently thinking the first e-mail didn’t get transmitted, Machado sent the same message twice, and school officials quickly traced the messages to him after they received complaints.

The e-mail upset some students, especially those of Asian descent, who make up nearly 50% of UC Irvine’s 17,000 students, the highest percentage of any UC school.

Several Irvine students testified that they were petrified by the e-mail. They armed themselves with pepper spray, refused to go out alone at night and became suspicious of strangers.

The defense called other students who testified that they became angry over the message but later shrugged it off as a bad joke.

During the trial, defense lawyers depicted Machado as a disturbed teenager who became distraught and flunked out of UC Irvine after his brother was murdered in Los Angeles.

When he sent the threatening e-mail, Machado was no longer a UC Irvine student, but he was too ashamed to tell his immigrant parents, according to deputy federal public defender Sylvia Torres-Guillen.

Some attorneys, including Machado’s defense team, questioned whether the charges should have been filed against the former student.

Torres-Guillen even called as a witness an expert in Internet etiquette, who described Machado’s e-mail as “a classic flame”--online lingo for an angry message that, while annoying, is not meant to be harmful.

But Gennaco contended that Machado hated Asians because they got better grades than he did. He said prosecutors may suggest that Machado attend a racial awareness program as part of his sentence.