Ex-Student Indicted in Hate-Mail Case

An 18-year-old former student at Grant High School in Van Nuys was indicted Friday by a federal grand jury in Los Angeles on charges that he mailed racial threats to the school principal, assistant principal and a fellow student.

Robert Snyder of Van Nuys was charged with three counts of mailing threatening communications.

In a related development, the Los Angeles city attorney’s office filed misdemeanor vandalism and criminal slander charges Friday against two other former Grant students, Denisa Klotz, 18 and an unidentified 17-year-old boy.

The charges stem from an investigation by Los Angeles police, school district police and postal inspectors into hate letters, campus graffiti and posters containing racial material, Los Angeles Police Detective Mel Arnold said.

The three former students are apparently not linked to any organized white supremacist groups, Arnold said.

The federal indictment alleges that Snyder sent the first letter Nov. 1 to the quarterback of the school’s football team, Gerald Redmond, warning him to “Keep your hands off White Girls” or he would be killed. Redmond, who is black, received a second letter Nov. 30, Arnold said.

Snyder mailed a similar letter to Assistant Principal Joseph Walker, who is black, on Nov. 26, the indictment says. Snyder is charged with sending a letter on Nov. 26 to Principal Robert Collins, who is white, calling him “another brand of ignorance that me and my friends are going to have to take care of,” because Collins is married to a black woman, Arnold said.

The letter also warned that a 10-foot cross would be burned on Collins’ front lawn and that his family would be harassed “day in and day out.”

Collins, who has been principal at Grant for more than seven years, was named principal of the year in 1988 by the National Assn. of Secondary Principals.

If convicted, Snyder faces up to 15 years in prison and $750,000 in fines, Assistant U.S. Atty. Lee Michaelson said.

“We’re trying to send a message to people out there that this kind of thing is not going to be tolerated,” Arnold said. “It’s not malicious mischief. It is terribly ugly activity.”

Klotz, who allegedly helped place campus posters and graffiti filled with racial and anti-Semitic slurs, has cooperated with authorities and will be allowed to remain free until a court appearance, Arnold said. The 17-year-old boy, who allegedly participated in the graffiti, was released to his parents to await a decision on charges.