Utica, NY – A 39-year-old Deerfield man appeared in Oneida County Court today on hate-crime charges that allege he made a racially-motivated threat to kill state Gov. David Paterson in September.
Subscribe to our Daily Roundup Email
Timothy W. Day, of Walker Road, pleaded not guilty to one charge of second-degree aggravated harassment and is due to appear in front of Judge Michael L. Dwyer March 27 to report on a plea offer.
According to the state police arrest report, Day called the office of state Assemblywoman RoAnn Destito from his home shortly after 2:30 a.m. Sept. 11, 2008, and left the threatening comments on her office answering machine.
Day’s message began:
“Ah, I just got home from work and I was watching the news and I was kind of amazed about the comment that our Governor made about the woman who is running for vice president with John McCain,” Day said in the message, according to the report. “I really think you should say something to him.”
Day appeared to be referring to what Paterson said after McCain’s running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, compared her previous political experience to then-Illinois Sen. Barack Obama’s community work.
“So I suppose a small town mayor is sort of like a community organizer, except with real responsibilities,” she said at the Republican nominating convention in September.
At the time, Paterson, who is black, said repeated use of the words “community organizer” was masked racism.
“I think where there are overtones is when there are uses of language that are designed to inhibit other people’s progress with a subtle reference to their race,” he said at the time.
In the recorded message to Destito, Day stated that he was “sick” of African Americans “running around … and hollering every time something is said, that it’s racism.”
After making a racist slur, Day threatened, “If I ever see that guy in Upstate New York … that blind black (expletive) … I’ll (expletive) kill him.”
Destito’s office reported the message to police, and Day was charged on Oct. 7 following an investigation by the New York State Police, Oneida County District Attorney Scott McNamara said.
“This is totally based upon race,” McNamara said. “But to me what’s even more disturbing is that he felt emboldened enough to leave that message on another government official’s phone.”
The charge is a class E felony, and the maximum penalty Day could face if convicted is 1-1/3 to 4 years in prison, McNamara said.
“You have to take any threat on anybody’s life seriously,” McNamara said. “What concerns us is what happened if he did act out what he threatened to do here, and we didn’t do something about this.”
Day currently is released on his own recognizance.
A representative of Paterson’s office declined to comment today.
Under Watts v USA, I’m not sure this qualifies as a “true threat”. It was posed as a hypothetical; *if* the governor did something, *then* the defendant would kill him. That’s not so different from what Watts said, which was that if he was drafted and given a gun, then the first person he wanted in his sights was the president. The Supreme Court said that was protected speech.