A North Carolina man who threatened to burn down a Black church in Virginia, after a church leader took part in a George Floyd vigil, was sentenced to two years in prison Thursday, prosecutors said.
What We Know:
- John Malcolm Bareswill, 63, targeted New Hope Baptist because a pastor from the church had taken part in a local vigil the day before honoring George Floyd and protesting racial injustice, according to court records.
- Bareswill had also called another church that took part in the vigil, but the call was not answered.
- According to US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia G. Zachary Terwilliger:
“While this sentence cannot undo that harm, it sends an important message: Our community will not tolerate attempts to silence free speech or interfere with the free exercise of religion.”
- Bareswill’s attorney claimed that the threat was an empty one and an irregularity for the law-abiding small-business proprietor who served in the Navy for 24 years. Bareswill is from North Carolina and worked as a package delivery business in Virginia Beach.
- James Broccoletti Defense Attorney wrote in court filings:
”The mere minutes that it took for Mr. Bareswill to commit this heinous act are but a tiny fraction of the life of an otherwise honorable and decent man.”
- Bareswill responded in court filings that he had been troubled about the possible result of the protests on his business. Some of the speakers at the vigil promoted a boycott of local businesses.
- Broccoletti claimed that his client has already suffered enormously, having caught coronavirus in jail and experiencing physical and verbal abuse from other prisoners.
Prosecutors had asked for punishment within sentencing suggestions, which were ordered between 12 to 18 months in jail. Raymond A. Jackson, U.S. District Judge in federal court in Norfolk, placed a sentence for two years.
