Man, 19, Gets Year for Racial Threats, Insults at Grant High

A Los Angeles federal judge sentenced a 19-year-old Van Nuys man Thursday to a year in prison for mailing threatening letters containing racial insults to administrators at Grant High School and a fellow student.

Bobby Snyder, a white former Grant student, pleaded guilty in February to three counts of mailing threatening communications to a black classmate, the school’s black assistant principal and the white principal, who is married to a black woman.

Defense attorney Donald J. Calabria had argued for probation, telling U.S. District Judge Mariana Pfaelzer that Snyder was sorry for what he did and was trying to change his life. Snyder made only a brief statement before he was sentenced, telling the judge, “Give me my chance.”

But Assistant U.S. Atty. Lee Michaelson urged Pfaelzer to send Snyder to prison for the 12 to 18 months allowed under federal sentencing guidelines. Michaelson argued that hate crimes are “the acid that erodes the trust” that holds a multicultural society together.

If Snyder were to get probation, Michaelson argued, “a significant part of the community would say the system . . . treats a young, white defendant who victimizes people of color differently than people of color.”

Calabria also contended that, because of the nature of his crimes, Snyder could be subject to harm by black inmates in prison.

Pfaelzer agreed and delayed the start of the prison term until September so authorities can decide which federal facility would be appropriate, she said. “We have to be very careful about how this sentence is served . . . not so much how, as where,” she said.

Snyder admitted mailing the first letter Nov. 1, 1990, to black classmate Gerald Redmond, using a racial epithet and warning, “Keep Your Hands Off White Girls.”

On Nov. 26, Snyder mailed a similar threat to the school’s assistant principal, Joseph Walker. He mailed a third threat the same day to Grant Principal Robert Collins, attacking him for marrying a black woman.

“I guess you are just another brand of ignorance that me and my friends are going to have to take care of,” he wrote. “How would you like a 10-foot cross burned on your front yard in where you live in Northridge?”

Calabria said Snyder had written letters of apology to each of his victims, as ordered in the plea agreement he reached with federal prosecutors, and also written an open letter to Grant High School.