U.S. District Judge Gretchen Lund sentenced a Whiting man to 10 months in federal prison Wednesday after he threatened an interracial family next door — and their landlord — until they moved out.
Brian O’Neill, 46, signed a plea deal in April in the U.S. District Court of Hammond for two counts of Interference with Housing based on Race and one count of Making False Statements to Law Enforcement, U.S. Attorney Clifford Johnson said in a release. He will also serve two years on supervised release.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas McGrath wrote O’Neill targeted the family from the day they moved there in June 2022.
It was a “campaign of hate,” he wrote, for the couple and their five kids.
In court filings, O’Neill’s defense lawyer Kerry Connor asked for time served with him paying restitution money to the family.
O’Neill sat in jail for over six months where he “had time to seriously think about his ignorant, offensive, and illegal conduct,” she wrote. He wanted to “seek out help for what he has recognized as his abhorrent behavior.”
Filings show O’Neill yelled at the mother, a woman of color, that day, saying he warned her landlord against renting to “people like her,” filings show. O’Neill later clarified he was talking about her race.
Weird things happened in the following months.
Their vehicles had unexplained dents and scratches. O’Neill would scream at them without provocation. Someone left a “rotting pumpkin” on their shared property line.
When the woman’s partner removed it, their car was keyed the next day.
He got into an argument with O’Neill in June 2023, because O’Neill thought they were starting to inch into his parking space. O’Neill threatened to rape the man and his family, court filings show.
The family called the cops.
When police arrived, they noted O’Neill was “erratic” and angry, saying he had a right to stand his ground in front of police. O’Neill told them he didn’t have a criminal record, because he “handles his (expletive) quiet,” according to documents.
Officers left without arresting him.
Afterward, O’Neill told the neighbors he was “untouchable” and “could do anything he wanted,” McGrath wrote.
McGrath noted an unrelated incident caught on video in 2022 where O’Neill threatened to “(mess) up” another driver and his family who were looking for a spot to park in tightly-packed Whiting.
A child’s birthday party appeared to tip the scales for the family.
When they threw a backyard bash in July 2023, the mother quickly told a relative to move when she realized they parked in front of O’Neill’s house.
Despite this, O’Neill still screamed racial slurs at her, telling the woman to “get out of Whiting,” the filings show. It was loud enough for the family and a young daughter to hear, the woman said.
The family called the cops again, and put the video on social media.
A couple of days later, the woman’s partner walked outside to discover someone had shattered his truck’s window. They decided to move the kids out and planned a community rally against what happened.
That included hiring a security consultant.
Police went to talk to O’Neill in a bid to calm him down. They told him about the rally.
In response, O’Neill followed the family’s landlord home, threatening him, adding he rented to “low level (racial slur) trash.”
O’Neill was screaming in the security consultant’s face, and had to be physically hauled away from him, filings show.
Days later, someone came by and smashed the couple’s front window with a hammer. They decided to move out, still paying the landlord for the two months he didn’t rent it out, because they were so fearful of O’Neill’s actions.
