Student Pleads Guilty to Hate Crimes on Internet

A Chinese American college student who sent threatening e-mail messages to Latinos at universities, corporations and government agencies around the country pleaded guilty Monday to federal hate crime charges.

Kingman Quon, 22, of Corona had been charged with seven counts of interfering with federally protected activities.

Quon, who is free on bond, will be sentenced April 26 by U.S. District Judge Edward M. Rafeedie. He faces up to seven years in prison and $700,000 in fines.

Defense lawyer Joseph T. Gibbons Jr. said his client “just snapped” while driving himself to excel at Cal Poly Pomona.

Quon admitted sending hate messages March 7 to 42 Latino faculty members at Cal State L.A., to 25 Latino students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and several more to Latino employees at Indiana University, Xerox Corp., the Texas Hispanic Journal, the Internal Revenue Service and NASA’s Ames Research Center.

The message, sent under someone else’s name, was peppered with ethnic slurs and included a threat to “come down and kill” the recipients.

A computer crimes unit at the FBI’s Los Angeles field office tracked Quon down. When confronted, he confessed and expressed remorse, authorities said.