PEORIA COUNTY, Ill. – A Bellevue man has been sentenced to 18 months behind bars for shouting racial slurs and threatening to kill his Black neighbors last summer.
47-year-old Charles Gathard pleaded guilty to the felony hate crime charge in Peoria County Court on Tuesday. According to court documents, he’s getting credit for 157 days already served in the county jail.
Besides shouting slurs, Gathard threw sticks at his neighbors’ house, threatened to burn it down, and told them to “go back to your village” on the night of Aug. 6, a Peoria County Sheriff’s Office report said.
Gathard reportedly told investigators he was drunk and didn’t remember what happened that night.
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