WASHINGTON—The Justice Department today announced that Benjamin Haskell, 23, of Springfield, Mass., pleaded guilty to a superseding information charging him with two crimes related to the burning of the Macedonia Church of God in Christ, a predominantly African-American church, in Springfield on the morning after President Barack Obama was elected as the first African-American president of the United States.
The superseding information charged that in the early morning hours of Nov. 5, 2008, within hours of President Obama being elected, Haskell and his co-conspirators agreed to burn, and succeeded in burning, the Macedonia Church of God in Christ’s newly constructed building where religious services were to be held for its predominantly African-American congregation. The building was 75 percent completed at the time of the fire, which destroyed the entire structure leaving only the metal superstructure and a small portion of the front corner intact. Investigators determined the fire to be incendiary in nature and caused by an unknown quantity of gasoline applied to the exterior and interior of the building.
Haskell damaged religious property and obstructed the free exercise of religious because of the race, color, or ethnic characteristics of any individual associated with that religious property. Haskell conspired to injure, oppress, threaten, and intimidate the parishioners of the Macedonia Church of God in Christ in the free exercise or enjoyment of the right to hold and use real property, a right which is secured in the Constitution and laws of the United States.
U.S. District Judge Michael A. Ponsor of Springfield scheduled sentencing for Sept. 29, 2010. By the terms of the plea agreement, Haskell faces mandatory sentence of 108 months in prison to be followed by three years of supervised release and a $7,500 fine.
The case was investigated by Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; FBI; Massachusetts State Police; Hampden County District Attorney’s Office, and the Springfield Police Department. It is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Paul H. Smyth and Kevin O’Regan of Ortiz’s Springfield Office and Nicole Lee Ndumele, Trial Attorney in the Civil Rights Division.