The Justice Department announced Tuesday that Kenneth Pilon, 61, plead guilty in federal district court to intimidating citizens from engaging in free speech and protests in support of Black Lives Matter.
Pilon will be sentenced on March 23.
Pilon plead guilty to two hate crime charges.
Specifically, officials stated that he pleaded guilty to count 1 of the filed information, which charged him with violating the law by calling nine Starbucks stores in Michigan and telling the employees answering his calls to relay specifically racial threats to Starbucks employees wearing Black Lives Matter T-shirts.
Pilon threatened to kill Black people, using a racial slur to refer to his intended victims.
Pilon also pleaded guilty to count 4 of the filed information, which charged him with violating the law by placing a noose inside a vehicle owned by R.S. and D.S. Attached to the noose was a handwritten note, reading: “An accessory to be worn with your ‘BLM’ t-shirt. Happy protesting!”
“The defendant levied racially-motivated death threats against multiple Black people wearing Black Lives Matter t-shirts,” said Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “The defendant also used a noose, a vile symbol of hatred and violence that harkens back to the Jim Crow era, to convey a threat of racial violence. Racially-driven threats of violence simply have no place in our society today, and the Department of Justice will continue to prosecute any individual who engages in this type of threatening conduct.”
The FBI investigated the case.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Timothy Turkelson for the Eastern District of Michigan and Trial Attorney Tara Allison of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division are prosecuting the case.