A Virginia man was sentenced on Friday, Aug. 20, to 18 months in federal prison after he brought a burning cross into a Black family’s yard last year.
James Brown, a 41-year-old man from Marion, pleaded guilty in April to criminal interference with federally protected housing rights based upon the victim’s race.
“When Brown burned a cross in the victim’s front yard, he carried out a despicable act of intimidation, interfered with a federally protected housing right, and broke a serious federal law,” Acting U.S. Attorney Bubar said the day of the sentencing. “Today’s sentence demonstrates that such threatening acts of hatred will be swiftly investigated and prosecuted. We thank the FBI and state partners for their hard work on this important case.”
In the morning hours of June 14, 2020, a Black family found a cross burning in their front yard. The day prior, one member of the family, then-17-year-old Travon Brown, had organized a civil rights protest in Marion, in the aftermath of George Floyd’s death. The teen’s mom, Briggette Thomas, feared the house was on fire at first.
Neighbors told investigators they had seen a “white, skinny man” walking away from the fire and into a home across the street.
Brown reportedly ran across the street as the cross burned and offered help to the family, although it would later be revealed that he was the one who set the blaze. A series of conflicts between Brown and the family allegedly preceded the incident.
Police arrived and used a fire extinguisher to put out the blaze and found that two pieces of wood had been screwed together to form a cross, which was propped up on a barrel. Neighbors said Brown had previously talked about burning crosses and spoke about Black people in a derogatory way.
He also told a neighbor after the incident, “I did it,” and laughed, calling the family the N-word when someone asked him about the fire. He was arrested 12 days later.
Brown was previously indicted by a grand jury on charges of making false statements, interfering with housing rights, using fire in violation of federal law and unlawfully possessing guns. He faced a maximum of 10 years in prison.
“We have zero tolerance in our communities for those individuals violating anyone’s civil rights. Investigating allegations of civil rights violations continues to be a top priority for the FBI; and through our community liaison and law enforcement partnerships we will continue to investigate and mitigate the unwanted and unwarranted behavior of racially motivated individuals,” Special Agent in Charge Stanley M. Meador said. “FBI Richmond encourages anyone who may have knowledge or is a victim of a hate crime to report it to law enforcement.”
