Ex-UCI Student Denies Threatening Asians

A former UC Irvine student who has been charged in the nation’s first hate crime case stemming from e-mail, pleaded not guilty Monday and will be held for trial April 29.

Richard Machado, 19, faces charges that he violated the civil rights of about 60 students of Asian heritage when he sent them a message threatening to kill them if they didn’t leave school.

Prosecutors said it is the first such federal case they have tried, and H. Dean Steward, who heads the federal public defender’s office in Santa Ana, also described the case as uncharted legal territory that centers on 1st Amendment issues.

At the heart of the case, he said, is the credibility of the threat. “If it were directed at all Asians in California, clearly it’s beyond the scope of credibility,” he said. “But if it is directed at one individual it might be considered credible.”

Assistant U.S. Atty. Michael Gennaco said the government believes it has met that test because Machado allegedly sent the message to a select group of students, not every Asian on campus.

Machado, who fled the area after the indictment was returned in November, was arrested last month in Nogales, Ariz., as he crossed the border from Mexico.

A federal judge last week declared him a flight risk and ordered him confined without bail.

Machado allegedly threatened to “personally make it” his “life career” to “find,” “hunt down” and “kill” the recipients of his Sept. 20 message if they did not leave school. The message was signed “Asian hater.”

UCI officials traced the message to an engineering lab computer, part of the evidence that led them to Machado.

Campus police said Machado was not enrolled at the time he allegedly sent the message.

If convicted, he faces a maximum of 10 years’ imprisonment and a $1-million fine.