[Westbrook]

Heh. He has been charged with “ethnic intimidation”.

See, they can’t charge him with a “hate crime”, so they have to invent a euphemism to mask it.

[Paulie]

LOL - ethnic intimidation - that’s new one.

I bet most of the LIV don’t even know what ‘intimidation’ means.

[offduty]

Actually, under the Ohio Revised Code, “Ethnic Intimidation” is Ohio’s version of a hate crime. It was passed back in the 90’s, but to my knowledge, hasn’t been used all that much.

[offduty]

It is a sentence enhancer that, if the judge finds “beyond a reasonable doubt” that race, ethnicity, or other variables exist, would allow the judge to bump the penalty up from a misdemeanor to a felony.

In other words, the underlying charge in this case would probably be assault. If the prosecution shows the motivation for the assault was based solely on race the sentence could go from a 1st degree misdemeanor (6 mos) to a 5th degree felony (1 yr).

[BBell]

I agree. You beat me by 1 minute 4 seconds.

[DoodleDawg]

See, they can’t charge him with a “hate crime”, so they have to invent a euphemism to mask it.

Ethnic intimidation is the relevant charge under Ohio's criminal code. They don't have any legislation titled "Hate Crime Law"