Man Who Burned Cross Outside Black Family’s Home Gets 11 Years In Prison

Seminary, MS — Louie Revette, a 38-year old white man, has plead­ed guilty to the racist act of burn­ing a cross out­side the home of an African-American fam­i­ly on October 2017. He was con­vict­ed of sev­er­al charges in con­nec­tion to the crime and he recent­ly received his sen­tence of 11 years in fed­er­al prison. Revette was report­ed­ly con­vict­ed on one count of using fire in the com­mis­sion of a fed­er­al felony, inter­fer­ence with hous­ing rights and a fed­er­al civ­il rights vio­la­tion in con­nec­tion to the incident.

During his tri­al, Revette was remorse­ful and said that he wish­es he could take it back. He said, “I want every­one to know I’m not proud of what hap­pened. I hate what I did. I can­not even believe I did that. I’ve nev­er done any­thing like that before in my life.”

Revette entered a guilty plea in April and con­fessed that he went to a major­i­ty-Black neigh­bor­hood in Seminary, Mississippi, to burn cross­es that he him­self cre­at­ed at his home with his accom­plice Graham Williams, who also plead­ed guilty.

Both Revette and Williams said they did the racist act in an attempt to “threat­en, fright­en, and intim­i­date” Black res­i­dents due to their race and color.

“Those who instill fear and ter­ror into our neigh­bors and our fel­low cit­i­zens because of the col­or of their skin will face the full weight and force of the law from the U.S. attorney’s office,” Mike Hurst, U.S. attor­ney for Southern Mississippi, said in a state­ment from the Justice Department. “There is absolute­ly no place in our soci­ety or our coun­try for this type of behav­ior, and we will do all that we can to pre­vent these racist acts and bring to jus­tice those who are intent on com­mit­ting these crimes.”

Judge Keith Starrett described the defen­dants’ actions as a “big deal.” He said, “It is not an act of courage to come in the night and try to intim­i­date somebody.”

Meanwhile, pros­e­cu­tors want­ed a harsh­er sen­tence for Revette say­ing that he even tried to recruit more oth­ers to join him in burn­ing cross­es. Rose Marie Shears, the grand­moth­er of one of the vic­tims, said Revette and Williams should have to be in prison for 20 to 40 years for their crime.

“I thought that ‘those days’ were over,” she told fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tor Julia Gegenheimer. “This act has brought it all back.”

Graham Williams, who faces up to 30 years in prison, is sched­uled to be sen­tenced on November 5.