Missouri man sentenced to two years for threatening Muslims

Services at Islamic Society of Augusta (Georgia).

ANOTHER ISLAMAPHOBE will spend the next two years in prison because of his intolerance towards Muslims.

Preston Q. Howard, 50, of Wright City, Missouri, was sentenced July 24 by Chief United States District Court Judge J. Randal Hall to two years in prison for threatening to blow up a mosque and kill its members. The judge enhanced the sentence because Mr. Howard chose his victims based on their religion, thereby committing a hate crime. 

PRESTON Q. HOWARD

According to court documents, between June 22, 2017, and Aug. 8, 2017, Howard made dozens of early morning telephone calls to the Islamic Society of Augusta (ISA), during which he threatened to “kill,” “bomb,” “shoot,” “behead,” “slaughter,” “execute,” “light on fire,” and “murder” members of the mosque, to “hunt down” and “zone in” on Muslims, and to “blow up the mosque.” 

Howard pleaded guilty to these acts and obstructing or attempting to obstruct the mosque members’ free exercise of their religious beliefs.

When imposing the sentence, Hall noted Howard’s “disturbing pattern of intolerance of many groups of people,” and the Court’s intent to afford a deterrent to similar criminal conduct by Howard and others who may believe and act as he did.

During his sentencing, Howard said he has spent his time studying Islam and no longer has the hatred towards that religion that spurred his previous actions.
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