A Union Township man was sentenced to three years in state prison for making racially charged threats of physical and sexual violence against a pair of neighbors earlier this year, acting Union County Prosecutor Grace H. Park announced Friday.
Glenn Miller, 59, of Kimberly Road, had previously pleaded guilty to a charge of second-degree bias intimidation.
An investigation involving the Prosecutor’s Office Special Prosecutions Unit and Detective Peter Simon of the Union Police Department revealed that the victims, in this case, a married couple, called the police on Friday, March 3, 2017 to report that Miller had parked his truck on the grass divider between the curb and sidewalk directly in front of their home, according to Union County Bias Crimes Assistant Prosecutor Shawn Barnes, who prosecuted the case.
Responding police issued Miller a traffic summons. Four days later, on Tuesday, March 7, police again responded to the victims’ home for the same reason, finding Miller’s truck parked in the same place, Barnes said.
The investigation revealed that when confronted by the victims and police, Miller directed numerous expletives and racial slurs at the victims, and on one occasion he threatened to kill the male neighbor and sexually assault his wife.
Miller was arrested by Union Police Officer Chris Scudeiri for disorderly conduct and resisting arrest following the March 7 incident and released but was rearrested later that month. He has been lodged in Union County Jail since the latter arrest, having been denied release at a detention hearing.
New Jersey’s bias intimidation statute dictates that a person is guilty of the crime if he or she commits or threatens the immediate commission of certain underlying crimes with a purpose to intimidate or knowing that an individual or group of people would be intimidated because of race, color, religion, gender, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, or ethnicity.
Placed into the record before sentencing were written statements by each victim describing the extreme effect Miller’s actions had on their emotional well-being.
“This was an attempt to terrorize people based on their race,” Barnes said, echoing comments from Judge Deitch that the case constituted a set of “outrageous facts and circumstances.”
Miller, who apologized to the victims during a brief statement, was also ordered to have no future contact with the victims.