Former Student Guilty of Making Ethnic E-Mail Threats

Black Issues in Higher Education, March 4, 1999

LOS ANGELES -- A Chinese American college student who e-mailed a death threat to Hispanic professors, students, and officials across the country agreed last month to plead guilty to seven misdemeanor crimes and likely will serve 30 months in prison, federal officials say.

Kingman Quon, 22, pleaded to seven misdemeanor counts of interfering with federally protected activities. He was accused of threatening to use force against his victims with the intent to intimidate or interfere with them because of their national origin or ethnic background. It was the second federal civil rights prosecution involving e-mailed threats.

U.S. Attorney Alejandro N. Mayorkas says Quon used a fictitious address to send racially derogatory e-mails to professors at California State University-Los Angeles; students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, National Aeronautics and Space Administration; and employees at Indiana University, the Xerox Corp., and the Internal Revenue Service.

The former California State Polytechnic University-Pomona student "put a great deal of pressure on himself in terms of his class standing," says his attorney, Joseph T. Gibbons Jr. "He seemed to snap under all the pressure he was placing on himself."

Outside the courthouse, Quon, a marketing major, said he sent the messages because he couldn't stand the pressures of being "a high-achieving college student." He apologized and asked the victims to forgive him.

He could face up to seven years in prison at his April 26 sentencing, although he is expected to receive a 30-month sentence under a plea bargain.