A Michigan judge has sentenced a 62-year-old man to 10 months of jail time for intimidating people for protesting in favor of Black Lives Matter.
U.S. District Judge Thomas Ludington sentenced Kenneth Pilon, 62, of Saginaw, Michigan who pleaded guilty to two counts of hate crime charges for intimidating and attempting to intimidate nine Starbucks employees for wearing Black Live Matter T-shirts.
The prosecutors claim the man also threatened to kill black people. The man placed a noose inside a vehicle with a note reading, “An accessory to be worn with your ‘BLM’ t-shirt. Happy protesting!”
According to details, the man called nine Starbucks and told the receivers to relay his threats to all those employees who wore BLM shirts to show support for the movement.
“The nooses … and the calls to Starbucks were all intended to terrorize the targeted victims solely because of their race,” said Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division.
Starbucks announced its support to BLM in 2020 and gave away 250,000 shirts to all its employees who wanted to wear them during their shifts to register their protests against the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
