Hate crimes: Jacksonville man pleads guilty to racial attacks on Black women days apart
A white Jacksonville man has pleaded guilty to federal hate crimes for threatening two Black women with a shotgun, shooting at one of them.
Frederick E. Pierallini III, 27, was already facing an attempted murder charge in state court when federal prosecutors charged him last month with illegally interfering with the women because of their race.
He could face up to 10 years behind bars for each of the two federal counts, which involved seemingly random encounters with the women two days apart last September. Neither woman was significantly injured.
A U.S. Justice Department official said authorities are drawing a line against hate crimes.
“Racially motivated threats and acts of violence have no place in our society today,” Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said in a statement following the plea. “The Justice Department stands ready to investigate and prosecute individuals who target Black people with threats and acts of violence.”
Georgia-Florida weekend hate: What we know about 2 of the leaders in recent antisemitic activities in Jacksonville
Hate crime? Jacksonville judge says it could be for accessory suspects in murder
State court records said Pierallini had been detained twice in 2019 for mental health observation under the state’s Baker Act and told a Sheriff’s Office detective “he was drunk and went ‘unhinged’ for a moment” before firing his shotgun in the second incident.
Court records said Pierallini first used the shotgun as a threat Sept. 10 after trying to buy a Slim Jim and a cheese stick inside Daily’s Place at 620 S. Chaffee Road, where a machine declined the card he used to pay.
Telling the Black woman behind the counter she didn’t know how to do her job, he used a racial slur several times and walked out of the store on the city's Westside, remaining there unnoticed until the woman and her co-workers stepped outside on break, according to a summary in a plea agreement Pierallini signed.
Again calling the woman by the racial slur, he took a shotgun from his pickup truck, pointed it at her and pulled the slide back as the woman and her co-workers ran inside, then he drove off, the plea agreement said.
Then before 6 a.m. on Sept. 12, Pierallini was working on a truck tire outside his apartment in the Southside's Lakewood area off University Boulevard when he began shouting the slur at a Black woman outside a neighboring strip mall, according to the agreement.
“You can’t be sitting over here, n-----,” he told the 61-year-old woman, who later told police she was waiting for a self-storage business to open when the man said he was going to kill her.
The plea agreement said Pierallini returned with his shotgun and fired one shot as the woman, who used a walker, talked with a 911 operator, dropping to the ground afraid for her life.
An arrest report said Pierallini’s mother told police he had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and stopped taking medication and refused treatment. His mother advised she had taken his gun the week before but his father had returned it.
After the plea, U.S. Magistrate Monte Richardson ordered Pierallini detained awaiting sentencing, which hasn’t been scheduled. However Pierallini was already in the Duval County jail and remained there Friday, according to jail records.
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: White Jacksonville man pleads guilty to hate crimes on Black women
