A 70-year-old Chicago woman will spend nearly three years in federal prison for throwing a “Molotov cocktail” onto her neighbors’ porch in a targeted hate crime.
Ana M. Hernandez was sentenced Thursday to two years and nine months in prison.
The sentencing follows an incident on March 16, 2024, where Hernandez threw a glass bottle filled with oil and a washcloth onto a wooden back porch.
The device ignited a fire, but fortunately, no one was injured.
In a plea agreement, Hernandez admitted she targeted the residents because they were of Venezuelan origin.
Her goal was to intimidate the family into moving out of the neighborhood.
The investigation revealed that later the same day, Hernandez left a threatening handwritten note on the landlord’s car.
The note read: “We do not want you in the neighborhood. Go back to your country. You can go the easy way or the hard way.”
Hernandez pleaded guilty earlier this year to a federal hate crime charge of unlawfully interfering with housing rights.
U.S. District Judge Lindsay C. Jenkins handed down the sentence, which was announced by the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the FBI.
Local Chicago Police assisted in the federal investigation, highlighting a zero-tolerance policy for bias-motivated violence in the city.
