MIAMI
Melanie Harris, 59 of Riverside, California, was sentenced Thursday to two years and eight months in prison for making anti-Semitic threats against a Jewish family, officials stated.
Harris pleaded guilty to knowingly and intentionally transmitting a threatening communication in interstate commerce, according to authorities.
U.S. District Judge Roy K. Altman sentenced Harris during a hearing in Miami.
“Defendant Melanie Harris’s anti-Semitic threats terrorized a Jewish family,” stated U.S. Attorney Markenzy Lapointe for the Southern District of Florida. “Her hate-filled telephone calls and voicemails were abhorrent. No one should live in fear of threats, harassment, and hate-fueled violence. “
“Melanie Harris sent threatening communications to a Jewish family using vile and inflammatory language. The nature of her threats of violence towards the victims and their faith were clearly meant to evoke a climate of fear and intimidation. Such conduct cannot be tolerated,” said Jeffrey B. Veltri, Special Agent in Charge, FBI Miami Field Office.
According to the evidence, on October 3, 2022, Harris placed several calls to Victim 1’s mobile phone, leaving four distinct threatening voicemails.
These communications were made with the intention to convey a genuine threat and with the understanding that they would be perceived as such. Among these voicemails, one from October 3 included the following statement by Harris: “I’ll cut your f—— head off kiker.” It’s worth noting that “kike” is a historically recognized anti-Semitic slur directed at individuals of Jewish descent.
Neither Victim 1 nor his wife, Victim 2, knew the identity of the person (Harris) calling Victim 1 with these threatening and harassing calls and voicemails.
Nor did they know where the calls were coming from because Harris concealed her phone number using the *67 feature.
However, all of these calls originated from the Riverside, California area, where Harris lived at the time, and were received by Victim 1’s phone in the Southern District of Florida.
Both Victim 1 and his wife, Victim 2, were unaware of the identity of the individual (Harris) responsible for the threatening and harassing calls and voicemails received by Victim 1.
Additionally, they were unable to determine the origin of the calls as Harris utilized the *67 feature to conceal her phone number.
Nonetheless, all of these calls were traced back to the Riverside, California area, where Harris resided at the time. They were received on Victim 1’s phone located within the Southern District of Florida.
For over four years, Harris harassed and threatened three victims by making over two-hundred and forty calls to Victim 1, leaving messages and engaging in conversations where she unleashed anti-Semitic hate and direct threats against Victim 1, his family, and Jews in general.
In these calls and voicemails, Harris made incessant references to the congregants murdered in the October 2018 massacre at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
In these calls and voicemails,, Harris repeatedly referred to Victim 3 by their first name, in anti-Semitic and violent terms. Harris also made vile references to Anne Frank being murdered by the Nazis, and Jews going back to Auschwitz.
In one voicemail, played for the court at the sentencing hearing, she repeatedly screamed “Seig Heil, Kill Kikers” over and over before hanging up.
The fact that Victim 1 had served as the Tree of Life’s executive director for more than 20 years, Victim 2 had been his wife, and Victim 3, her adult child, had been a long-time member and close associate of the Tree of Life, added to Harris’ four-year campaign of harassment and threats against the victims.
Harris prevented Victim 1’s caller identification system from recognizing her phone number during her calls, leaving the victims in constant fear for their lives up until Harris’s arrest in March 2023.
As a result, the victims had no idea who the harasser was or where they might be.
In addition, on the same day in February 2019 that Harris began her calls to Victim 1, she also began calling the Tree of Life, leaving virtually identical hate-filled anti-Semitic messages referencing the deaths of the elderly worshippers.
The FBI’s Miami Area Corruption Task Force, which also investigates civil rights violations, investigated the case.