A 74-year old Long Island, New York retired high school teacher was sentence to 30 months in prison after spending eight years sending anonymous letters threatening to bomb, shoot, and kill more than 60 LGBTQ people, government officials, businesses, and organizations.
Robert Fehring “was arrested in December and subsequently pleaded guilty in February as part of a deal with prosecutors to one count of mailing threatening communications,” Buzzfeed News reports. “The defendant has a First Amendment right to hold bigoted beliefs; he does not have a right to threaten people based on his bigoted beliefs,” prosecutors told U.S.
District Court Judge Joanna Seybert in their 11-page sentencing memo last month. “It is now time for the defendant to face the consequences of his hate-filled conduct.” Buzzfeed published some of Fehring’s threats, including one sent last year to the owners of New York’s historic Stonewall Inn, considered the iconic birthplace of the LGBTQ civil rights movement. READ MORE: Fox News Vilified LGBTQ People on Most Days in the First Half of the Year – and Almost Every Day of Pride Month: Report (Caution: graphic and possibly triggering.) “ALL OF YOU SHOULD BE SHOT, HUNG, EXTERMINATED,” he wrote. “WE WILL BLOW UP/BURN YOUR ESTABLISHMENTS DOWN.
WE WILL SHOOT THOSE WHO FREQUENT YOUR DENS OF FILTH, SHIT, SCUM AND PERVERSION . . . JUST A MATTER OF TIME. PLEASE . . . CATCH AIDS AND DIE . . .