Santa Cruz man sentenced to nearly seven years in prison in hate crime knife attack
Witness: The man slashed at a Black man 10 to 20 times
SAN JOSE >> A Santa Cruz man was sentenced to more than 6 years in prison after being convicted of a federal hate crime, officials said.
Ole Hougen, 45, was sentenced to 82 months in prison for attacking a Black man on the street with a knife, according to a U.S. Department of Justice news release Thursday. Hougen was convicted of violating the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act on April 9.
Hougen confronted a 29-year-old Black man near San Lorenzo Boulevard and Broadway in Santa Cruz and shouted racial slurs at him, according to evidence at the federal trial. Hougen also slashed at the man’s head, chest and stomach with a nineinch knife while screaming slurs, officials said. Three eyewitnesses came forward during the trial, with one saying that Hougen stabbed and slashed at the man’s chest and head 10 to 20 times, according to the news release.
“Justice was served in this landmark investigation,”
Special Agent in Charge Craig Fair of the FBI San Francisco Field Office was quoted in an agency media release. “This case shows how critical it is for the community to report hate crimes to law enforcement. Thanks to the work of our FBI Special Agents, the Santa Cruz Police Department, and the brave reporting of members of our community, Ole Hougen was convicted of a federal hate crime by a jury of his peers and will now serve his sentence in federal prison.”
Santa Cruz police said that the attack occurred on July 5, 2020, according to a Facebook post. The victim
“was able to fend off the attacker” until police arrived, they said.
At the time, Hougen was on probation after pleading no contest to charges that he “committed a racially motivated assault on a different Black man in 2018,” according to federal officials. There also was evidence presented at the trial of Hougen allegedly threatening or committing violence while screaming slurs in other, earlier incidents, according to the release. The latest conviction is Hougen’s fourth racially motivated attack in the last seven years committed against Black men, authorities said.
An earlier Santa Cruz County Superior case was dropped after Hougen was indicted on the federal hate crime charges in November 2020. Hougen was convicted this year after a six-day trial, marking the first conviction and sentencing under the ShepardByrd Act in the Northern District of California, officials said.
“Ole Hougen’s violent assault didn’t just attack an individual, he attacked the entire community associated with the victim,” said Acting Assistant Director Jay Greenberg of the FBI’s Criminal Investigative Division. “All crime is unacceptable, but hate crimes are particularly cruel. They strike at an unchangeable, fundamental, and defining part of a victim’s identity. In this way, they attack everyone who identifies with this victim.”
Judge Davila said while announcing his sentence that it was “profoundly wrong to attack someone because of their race” and that Hougen should “remove the hate from his heart” while in prison. Hougen was also sentenced to three years of supervised release and started serving his sentence immediately.