CORVALLIS, Ore. — An Oregon State University student with ties to white nationalists in the Pacific Northwest has been sentenced to 40 days in jail for putting offensive stickers on the cars of members of a racial justice group.
Andrew Oswalt, 28, was sentenced Wednesday for the felony hate crime of intimidation and misdemeanor criminal mischief, the Gazette-Times reported. He also got three months of probation.
Oswalt, an Oregon State University doctoral student in chemistry, was taken into custody following the hearing. His trial attorney, Nicolas Ortiz, said after he was convicted last month that Oswalt will appeal.
Corvallis police say Oswalt and an accomplice placed bumper stickers with a racist slur about black people on two cars at a Corvallis food co-op in June 2017.
The vehicles belonged to members of the Corvallis chapter of Showing Up For Racial Justice, which held a meeting at the co-op that day to discuss ways to combat white supremacy and those promoting racist or bigoted views in the area, prosecutors said.
A co-op employee also discovered anti-Semitic leaflets on the windshields of cars in the staff parking lot at the time.
Police said officers later searched Oswalt’s residence and found matching bumper stickers and fliers. Oswalt was identified through surveillance footage from the scene, police said. Police never identified the second suspect.
Oswalt’s attorney argued in court that the prosecution had failed to conclusively prove whether Oswalt placed the stickers and that the state had not proved that Oswalt knew anything about the individual attendees of the meeting so he could not have been targeting them over their race or religion as required by the intimidation statute.
In January, Oswalt was ousted from his student government role following his arrest and after the student newspaper published an interview with him in which he shared inflammatory thoughts about minorities and women.
In court Wednesday, Oswalt offered to volunteer for a local organization, the university or local schools instead of serving jail time, saying jail time should be reserved for people who are dangerous.
“You may be offended by my beliefs, but I am not a danger to the community,” he said.
Benton County Circuit Court Judge David Connell said Oswalt’s actions were essentially trying to sow seeds of hate in the community.
