A 34-year-old man has been found guilty on two counts of criminal mischief with hate crime enhancements for scrawling racist slurs on vehicles and placing nails in a dentist's family driveway, reports The Daytona Beach News-Journal.
On July 29, Kyle Christiansen painted racist Asian slurs on two vehicles belonging to family members of a New Smyrna Beach, Fla.-based dentist, causing more than $5,000 in damage. Evidence showed that Mr. Christiansen was motivated by the victims' race and heritage, reported the state attorney's office.
The dentist told police she had received a Facebook message July 24 from an account with the name "Pine Cone" that contained Asian slurs and said she and her husband needed to die by rat poison. Investigators traced the Facebook account to Mr. Christiansen.
The dentist said Mr. Christiansen was a patient of hers and had been in her office to have his teeth cleaned the day before she received the Facebook message, an affidavit states.
In her deposition, the woman said Mr. Christiansen was a new patient and perhaps was surprised she was Asian. She said that perhaps based on her last name, which isn't Asian, he may have been expecting a white dentist.
"He kept on saying, 'This office isn't what it seems,' and he would never expand on that and so that was that," the woman said, according to the News-Journal.
Mr. Christiansen could get up to 30 years in prison, with each second-degree felony punishable by up to 15 years. His sentencing is set for July 13.