Federal charge filed in Santa Cruz assault
SANTA CRUZ >> A Santa Cruz man charged with a hate crime related to an attempted stabbing near San Lorenzo Boulevard and Broadway this summer is now facing a federal indictment.
Ole Hansen Hougen, 44, remained in Santa Cruz County Jail on Wednesday in lieu of $25,000 bail and is scheduled for a jury trial Oct. 26 related to local charges of felony assault with a deadly weapon and misdemeanor hate crime. Separately, the U.S. Department of Justice is pursuing a federal hate crime charge against Hougen, according to an FBI complaint filed Sept. 25 in U. S. District Court Northern District of California.
Shortly after Hougen’s July 5 arrest, now-retired Santa Cruz police Lt. Warren Barry told the Sentinel that he had reached out to the FBI to seek input in the case and gauge its interest in filing related charges.
The federal charge complaint alleges that Hougen, white, confronted a
29- year- old Black man who was crossing a street in Santa Cruz. Hougen is accused of taking out a 9-inch knife and slashing at the man’s head, chest and stomach nine or 10 times while yelling racial slurs at him. According to Santa Cruz police reports, Hougen allegedly also had used homophobic slurs against the man, whom Hougen did not succeed in stabbing.
At the time of the attack, Hougen was on probation
for state convictions involving a racially-motivated assault on a different Black man in 2018, according to a release from the Department of Justice. The complaint also describes two additional racially- motivated assaults against Black men committed by Hougen in 2014 and 2018.
During a preliminary court hearing July 21 before Santa Cruz County Superior Court Judge Syda Cogliati, a Santa Cruz police officer testified that
Hougen additionally yelled racial slurs at that officer, of Mexican descent, while the officer was taking Hougen to jail.
Hougen’s defense attorney, Ed Sidawi, said during the hearing that while witness reports of Hougen’s racially-based shouts were not necessarily a good ‘ look’ for Hougen, they were part of the ‘ vernacular’ Hougen was using at the time. Sidawi added that the “hate crime” charge looks more salacious on paper than the case’s details reveal.
“I don’t think that just because foul language was used (the fight) was because of a racial or homophobic intent,” Sidawi told the court.
Cogliati said the case came down to a “very violent action” that may have resulted in serious injury, regardless of the salaciousness of the “hate crime” allegations. To qualify as a hate crime, a criminal act motivated by prejudice must be committed against another person.