A 33-year-old man has been charged with a hate crime for allegedly scrawling racist slurs on two vehicles belonging to his dentist's family in Florida, according to The Daytona Beach News-Journal.
Kyle Christiansen was charged with felony vandalism, punishable by a maximum prison sentence of five years. A hate-crime modifier typically increases the degree and punishment of a charge.
On July 29, racist Asian slurs were painted on two vehicles belonging to family members of a New Smyrna Beach, Fla., dentist, according to a police report. The words "rat" and "retard" were also painted on the vehicles. Each vehicle sustained about $2,000 in damage.
The dentist told police that she had received a Facebook message July 24 from an account with the name "Pine Cone" that contained Asian slurs and said she and her husband needed to die by rat poison.
Investigators traced the Facebook account to Mr. Christiansen. The dentist said Mr. Christiansen was a patient of hers and had been in for a cleaning the day before she received the message. She said Mr. Christiansen had been extremely rude to her and a dental assistant, who had broken down in tears, according to the affidavit cited by The Daytona Beach News-Journal.