← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Centinel
Thread ID: 15990 | Posts: 8 | Started: 2004-12-15
2004-12-15 22:50 | User Profile
[url]http://www.nbc4.tv/education/3998600/detail.html[/url]
Former Professor Sentenced To State Prison
POSTED: 6:23 am PST December 15, 2004 UPDATED: 2:36 pm PST December 15, 2004
LOS ANGELES -- A former Claremont McKenna College visiting professor, who spray-painted her car with racist and anti-Semitic slurs and then reported a hate crime on campus, was sentenced today to a year in state prison.
Pomona Superior Court Judge Charles Horan said Kerri Dunn "terrorized" minority students at the college and turned the rest of the students into suspects, adding that her actions could have sparked major racial violence.
He likened her actions to calling in a fake bomb threat, saying it had the effect of terrorizing people.
Along with the state prison term, he ordered Dunn to pay restitution of nearly $20,000 to Claremont College to cover the cost of beefing up security and canceled classes, and an undetermined amount of restitution to the police department for filing a false report.
"From what I saw in the press, I think the judge accurately characterized the way things occurred on campus," Deputy District Attorney Martin Bean said outside the courtroom.
The prosecutor added that it was "an appropriate sentence based on the crimes she committed."
Defense attorney Gary Lincenberg was asked to comment on the judge's characterization of his client's actions.
"The court made a point, in the court's view, it's had a large disruptive effect on campus and had a significant effect," he said. "I don't think he was trying to call her a terrorist."
Dunn's parents traveled from New Jersey to attend the hearing. The 40-year-old defendant's father asked the judge to let him bring his daughter home and get her mental help.
The judge agreed that the defendant has psychological problems that need to be addressed. But the judge noted that Dunn, who underwent a 90-day psychological evaluation before sentencing and had faced a maximum of three years in prison, never admitted to the crime.
It was reported that the assistant prison warden had recommended to the judge that she serve more time behind bars because she refused to accept responsibility for her actions.
She received credit for 134 days in custody, leaving her with 231 more days still to serve.
In a written statement after her Aug. 18 conviction, Dunn's attorney said his client maintained her innocence and planned to appeal.
She reported to police and school officials that her car had been spray- painted with racial slurs and the tires slashed March 9 while she was on campus preparing a lecture for an anti-hate forum. She also reported the vandalism to her insurer, according to the prosecutor.
Dunn's report of a hate crime prompted school officials to cancel classes at the five undergraduate Claremont campuses on March 10, and sparked anti- hate crime rallies that drew hundreds of students and captured national headlines.
Dunn claimed to have found her car vandalized about 8 that Tuesday night. But two prosecution witnesses testified that they saw Dunn drive her gold- colored Honda Civic into the college parking lot about 8 p.m. with the graffiti already on it.
"They saw her get out of her car, bend down next to two of the tires and they heard a hissing noise as she bent down to each tire," Bean said.
Dunn called her auto insurer the next morning to report the damage and property supposedly taken from her car, the prosecutor said.
Dunn's attorney had argued that no insurance claim was ever made.
"The jurors convicted because the court did not allow them to hear this important and uncontradicted testimony," Lincenberg said after his client's conviction.
As for the false police report charge, the defense lawyer claimed earlier that a Claremont College electrician "clearly identified a man who should have been the primary suspect in the vandalism."
Dunn was charged April 26 with two felony counts of insurance fraud and the misdemeanor count of a false police report. Jurors convicted her on lesser charges of attempted insurance fraud, along with the misdemeanor count.
Court records show that Dunn was arrested three times in 1999 and 2000.
She paid $75 in fines after being arrested in Nebraska in September 1999 and charged with driving without a license and having fictitious plates on her car.
A case stemming from a Dec. 31, 1999, arrest for shoplifting was dismissed after Dunn paid court costs. She was arrested again in a shoplifting case on Sept. 29, 2000, according to the Los Angeles Times.
2004-12-16 03:14 | User Profile
I suspect they meant the county jail, rather than the state prison (customarily in California, no one gets sentenced to less than 16 months in the state prison). If so, she'll be out after 8 months (minus time served), rather than a full year, but hey, I'm just glad she got time. She got the same amount I got for my little stunt back in '99, which makes me feel the system retains some minimal validity, in that it punished a multiculturalist as harshly as it punished a publicly avowed national socialist (Hell, I actually called for the overthrow of the government in one of my media interviews shortly after being arrested). Of course, what I did wasn't actually illegal, but was misconstrued as such in a Politically Correct show trial, while she is an actual criminal, but hey, one can't have everything....
2004-12-16 05:00 | User Profile
I'm pleased that she was convicted and will even do a little bit of time.
This case was good for us overall - folks might think twice before believing such outlandish allegations in the future.
Walter
2004-12-16 13:21 | User Profile
Justice was served. :thumbsup:
2004-12-16 18:31 | User Profile
Half the reason she faked a hate crime is because of how hysterially people respond to hate crimes. If she pretended to have been robbed by a predator, there would have been no classes cancelled. There wouldn't have been student rallies against theft.
She could have killed herself, and tried to make it look like a preditor did it. If the community thought she had been murdered, the community wouldn't have been so offended as they would be with a harmless "hate crime" (suppose the paint on the car was washable, so no damage done).
Someone faking a hate crime is hardly news anymore.
2004-12-17 07:37 | User Profile
I'm amazed no one has seized upon what, to me, is the most ominous and chilling aspect of this.
[QUOTE]...a Claremont McKenna College visiting [B]professor[/B]...[/QUOTE]
No, Kevin, the two aren't remotely analogous. An avowed 'racist' isn't going to be conducting seminars at an institution of higher learning, no matter how bonafide his bonafides; an 'anti-racist' can, even after a slew of arrests clearly pointing to an unstable personality.
Kerri Dunn's parents have surely known their daughter was crazy for a long time now - what was in their minds, knowing she was instructing young people in 'good and evil' (which is what these hate seminars boil down to)? "At least she's working?"
2004-12-17 16:30 | User Profile
I'm amazed no one has seized upon what, to me, is the most ominous and chilling aspect of this.
I think we're just progressively losing our capacity for outrage. I didn't particularly note the fact that she was (still is?) a professor, simply because I now assume, whether consciously or not, that anyone with a PhD and tenure is by default someone who thinks faking a "hate crime" is within the realm of acceptable action. File under: "the ends justify the means." The fact that she's pumping kids' minds full of crap is disturbing, but on the Richter scale of culture-shocks, this one doesn't register much above the constant shaking of the ground that we're unfortunately becoming accustomed to. I'm not saying such is right, but that seems to be the trend.
I also disagree with her being nuts. The initial reaction elicited by the crime was exactly what she was hoping for and served to further her agenda, both personal and political. You or I might think of that agenda as nuts, but in the worldview that sees fisting lessons for grade-schoolers as necessary and correct, it makes perfect sense. She was simply too stupid to pull it off, but imagine if she'd gotten away with it. The book deal alone would have set her on easy street, not that the life of a tenured college prof. is like a 20-year stint in the salt mines or anything. The shoplifting is just a little Robin Hood freelancing, simply cutting out the poor and keeping the swag for herself. Maybe in her world, she's "poor?" Besides, I've never seen a truly committed, dogmatic ideologue, whether a Nazi, Liberal, Rapture Bunny, race-pimp or neoconservative that couldn't rationalize and excuse away abberant or psychotic behavior by their "side" as being of marginal import while excoriating that same behavior elsewhere.
I don't know about her parents, but I think it a safe bet that they're of similar political persuasion. Maybe the difference is in degree, not in kind?
2004-12-17 17:28 | User Profile
Thanks Mad, you have spoken for those who are unable to do so.