BARRE, Vt. (AP) - A Barre man who pleaded guilty to a federal hate crimes charge accusing him of harassing and threatening an Hispanic family has been sentenced to time served plus three years of supervised release.
Stuart Kurt Rollins, 59, was accused of repeatedly threatening and intimidating the family, including two children, who lived across the street from him. He has been held since Nov. 27, 2017, and pleaded guilty in July.
According to court records, he threatened to burn down the family’s home while they were inside and threatened to set fire to a member of the family, the office of U.S. attorney for Vermont said Tuesday. He shouted racial and ethnic slurs at them, yelling at them to “go back to Mexico,” and warned that he would do “whatever it takes to get you off this street,” prosecutors said. He also exposed his genitals and buttocks in front of the family and smashed the family’s mailbox and smashed glass on the family’s lawn, the U.S. attorney’s office said.
“Violence in the form of federal hate crimes is antithetical to our core values of freedom, unity and equality,” U.S. Attorney Christina Nolan said in a statement. “The defendant’s threats here made a Vermont family feel unsafe in their own home, just because of their race and national origin.”
A phone message was left for the public defender who represented Rollins. The government’s sentencing memo noted that Rollins has a history of violent convictions, including assaults and crimes against children, and “suffers from a serious mental health condition,” the Times Argus reported.
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