Jewish Family Latest Victim of Hate Crime : Complaint: Youths use shaving cream to scrawl <i> Jew</i> on the lawn of a home in Rancho Santa Margarita. It’s the third alleged instance of racism the Sheriff’s Department has investigated in five days.

Authorities are investigating another alleged hate crime in which a group of youths allegedly singled out a Jewish family early Wednesday and sprayed Jew on their front lawn with shaving cream.

The incident is the second alleged racial incident to have occurred on the quiet residential street in recent weeks and the third complaint involving racism that the Sheriff’s Department has investigated in five days.

In the earlier cases, a 28-year-old Mission Viejo man was arrested for assaulting a 12-year-old black boy, and the Sheriff’s Department looked into complaints that a black San Francisco businessman was harassed at John Wayne Airport.

Authorities on Wednesday declined to file charges in the airport incident, citing a lack of evidence.

In the latest case six unidentified youths, all dressed in black, used a can of shaving cream to scrawl Jew twice on the lawn of a home on Calle Coturno, authorities said.

“Because of what they wrote we are looking at this as a hate crime,” Sheriff’s Lt. Robert Rivas said. “There is no physical damage, but they are attacking the people’s religion and ethnicity.”

Joye Epst, 50, said she called police when she saw six “young people dressed in black” spraying her neighbors’ car.

“I thought they were vandalizing the car,” said Epst, who had returned from classes at Saddleback College about two hours before the incident. “When I went downstairs, they disappeared.

“I walked over to my neighbors’ lawn and saw J-E-W- , J-E-W written in shaving cream,” Epst said. “I then shouted to my mother to call 911.”

It was not the first time the neighborhood had been the target of a racist prank, Epst said. Several weeks ago, she said her neighbors--an interracial couple--received a hate note.

One of the victims of the Rancho Santa Margarita incident, who asked to remain unidentified, said that he wanted to put the incident behind him.

“I don’t want to make an issue out of it,” he said, adding that he has not been the victim of anti-Semitism since he was a teen-ager in New Hampshire. “The only damage done was a couple hours of lost sleep. It’s probably some kids just goofing off.”

But neighbors and anti-discrimination leaders said they did not take the incident lightly.

Rusty Kennedy, executive director of the Orange County Human Relations Commission, condemned the apparent string of racial attacks.

“It’s unusual to hear about three incidents in a few days,” Kennedy said. “Anti-Semitism needs to be addressed. It’s not a good joke or an acceptable activity to attack people on race, ethnicity, sexual orientation or religious reasons.”

Elizabeth Gale, regional director of the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith in Santa Ana, agreed.

“These acts of hatred are intolerable,” she said. “Each is shocking and has no place in Orange County or anywhere else.”

In the other cases, Paul Richard Klein, 28, was arrested for allegedly punching a 12-year-old black youth in Mission Viejo. Police said he apparently was enraged because the youth was walking with several white children on the street and that Klein had shouted racial slurs at the boy before hitting him.

Officials said Klein, who faces charges of civil rights violations, assault and battery with a deadly weapon, admitted to authorities that he struck the boy.

“But he said it was more of a slap in the face,” Rivas said.

Rivas said Klein offered a story that differed greatly from one related by the boy’s mother, who accused Klein of trying to run over her son in his car and striking him in the face because he was playing with two white girls.

Another boy, who is half black and half Puerto Rican, also was present.

“There is some discrepancy about what happened,” Rivas said.

Meanwhile, the district attorney’s office investigated an incident in which a black San Francisco businessman, Wendell Carmichael, said he was harassed and knocked to the ground at John Wayne Airport by a white man.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Brent F. Romney said Wednesday that while a group of white men may have shouted racial slurs at Carmichael, there was no evidence to support a charge that he was physically struck.

In a telephone interview from San Francisco, Carmichael, 34, said he was outraged that no charges were filed and insisted that he was physically assaulted.

“It is typical Orange County,” he said. “I feel like I’ve been patronized.”

Rivas said the department will pursue the case and could persuade prosecutors to file charges at a later time if evidence of an assault is gathered.