Anti-Asian E-Mail Trial Disrupted by New Evidence

The nation’s first federal trial alleging a hate crime on the Internet was temporarily halted Thursday after it was disclosed that government prosecutors had not turned over critical evidence to the defense.

U.S. District Judge Alicemarie H. Stotler asked jurors in the case to return Wednesday so that the defense could have time to review newly disclosed evidence from prosecutors, who had earlier denied that the information existed.

But the judge turned down an impassioned plea by Deputy Federal Public Defender Sylvia Torres-Guillen for a dismissal of the case.

Torres-Guillen alleged that the federal prosecutors withheld evidence that buttressed her contention that former UC Irvine student Richard Machado engaged in a “stupid prank” when he sent electronic mail threatening to hunt down and kill Asian students at the university.

Machado, 19, has been charged with 10 counts of civil rights violations (interfering with students’ rights to attend a public university) for sending the hate mail to about 59 UCI students.

Stotler, who appeared visibly upset at the development in the case, said she would “lay the blame clearly at the feet of the government for failure to provide” the information to the defense.

Assistant U.S. Atty. Michael Gennaco, one of the prosecutors in the case, blamed “our shortcomings” on a “communication breakdown” and apologized profusely.

“I will make sure it wouldn’t happen again,” Gennaco told the judge. “I respect the rights of defendants.”

Torres-Guillen said she discovered only Wednesday that the information, questionnaires answered by some recipients of the e-mail, existed when she scrutinized grand jury transcripts that prosecutors had turned over earlier in the day.

The defense attorney produced a letter from Assistant U.S. Atty. Mavis Lee, another prosecutor in the case, who insisted that the government had no such information.

“The government’s action has clearly resulted in the most egregious of . . . violations,” Torres-Guillen said.

The questionnaires, which were turned over Thursday, supported Machado’s contention that “this was an immature, insensitive act done by a teenager without any malice and certainly without any intent to interfere with anyone’s education,” the defense attorney said.

In one questionnaire, student Tam Thanh Do stated that Machado’s e-mail “did not affect me any more than an ordinary e-mail message. I thought it was a prank.”

Do said she showed the e-mail to her boss at work and “we joked about it for a while and then my outrage was diminished.”

Another student, Clarisse J. Que, recounted in her questionnaire how she told investigators that “the university is a place that engenders and encourages free speech” and that “I didn’t think my well-being was personally threatened.”

Stotler indicated she would consider telling the jury about the withholding of evidence.

“They’re entitled to an explanation,” Stotler said.