Hate vandal gets 30 days in his home
A racist recluse was sentenced to 30 days of home confinement Thursday for scrawling the N-word on the African Burial Ground monument.
Ivan Nieves also faces two years of probation for the hateful “Kill n——-s” message he wrote with a Sharpie at the monument to 15,000 buried African slaves.
“He stays home. He feeds his parakeets. And that’s his life. It’s not like he’s out there looking to hurt people,” Nieves’ public defender Phil Weinstein said. Magistrate Judge Ona Wang said the crime on Nov. 1 of last year was despicable, but noted that the vandalism was a spontaneous act of hatred quickly scrubbed off of a sign at the monument, Weinstein recalled.
Prosecutors had sought at least 30 days behind bars for the “vile and racially motivated threat.”
Nieves (photo) was found guilty of vandalism in April following a day-long bench trial. NYPD Detective Michael Diaz testified that the Nieves lived in a “disorderly” Bronx apartment with small pieces of paper scattered on the floor and many scissors, knives and box-cutters. Nieves rarely left his apartment except to visit his sister downtown, Diaz testified.
Nieves is now working for the Parks Department. The vandal had refused to participate in court-ordered mental health assessments. Nieves’ brother died at a young age after being abused at a mental health clinic, Weinstein said. The tragedy left Nieves with a lifelong aversion to therapy, but now Nieves plans to receive grief counseling through a church program, according to his public defender.
Weinstein memorably argued before the trial that Nieves’ vandalism was no worse than inflammatory statements made by President Trump and the Ku Klux Klan.
Wang rejected those legal arguments.