WASHINGTON, July 23 /EMWNews/ -- Defendant William Bowen,

25, pleaded guilty yesterday in federal court to conspiring to violate the

civil rights of an African-American couple and their white friend by

spray-painting racial threats and epithets on the home where the three

victims lived in Collinsville, Ill., announced Grace Chung Becker, Acting

Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division, and A. Courtney

Cox, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Illinois. The defendant,

who will be sentenced on Oct. 31, 2008, faces a possible maximum sentence

of 11 years imprisonment.



    The defendant admitted that he conspired with another person to

frighten and intimidate three victims by spray-painting the victims' home

with racial threats. The defendant admitted that the purpose of the

conspiracy was to frighten and intimidate the victims because of their

race, and to scare them into moving out of the neighborhood where they

lived.



    Bowen's co-defendant, Joseph Brown, is scheduled to stand trial later

this month on charges of conspiracy, committing a civil rights violation

and making a false statement to a federal agent.



    "The right of every individual to live peacefully in his or her own

home without being terrorized because of race is firmly protected by the

laws of the United States," said Grace Chung Becker, Acting Assistant

Attorney General for the Civil Rights Divison. "The Department of Justice

will continue to prosecute vigorously anyone who engages in this kind of

criminal conduct."



    This case was investigated by Special Agent Rick Crouse of the

Springfield Office of the FBI and is being prosecuted by Deputy Chief Bobbi

Bernstein and Trial Attorney Kevonne Small of the Civil Rights Division of

the Department of Justice, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Angi Scott from the

U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Illinois.