Synagogue Vandal Gets 10-Year Term
A judge sentenced a 19-year-old man to the maximum 10 years in prison Thursday for vandalizing a synagogue, saying he wanted to send a powerful message to all hate groups.
“It’s not illegal to hate, but it is illegal to act on it,” State District Judge Joe Kendall said in sentencing Daniel Alvis Wood to the 10-year term and a $5,000 fine on a felony criminal mischief charge.
In pleading guilty, Wood, a high school dropout who police said was affiliated with a loose-knit neo-Nazi youth movement called the skinheads, admitted helping to deface Temple Shalom on Oct. 8. Red-painted hate messages were scrawled on the building and shotgun blasts shattered a glass door and a classroom window.
About 100 spectators, many of them Jewish, cheered when Kendall announced the sentence. Wood’s only reaction was to raise his arm in the Nazi salute.
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