Michigan Man Sentenced to Prison for Hate Crimes Against BLM Supporters and Racist Acts.

Kenneth D. Pilon, a retired optometrist from Michigan, has been sentenced to 10 months in federal prison and a year of supervised release for leaving nooses and threatening notes around his community and making racist phone calls in the summer of 2020 to intimidate Black Lives Matter supporters. Pilon pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor counts of willfully intimidating and attempting to intimidate citizens from engaging in lawful speech and protests. He left five nooses across Saginaw, Mich., and made nine phone calls to Starbucks stores in Michigan in which he told the employees who answered to make racist slurs toward their colleagues who wore Black Lives Matter T-shirts.