The Attorney General said the alleged harassment occurred over a three-year period and included smashing the windows in the homes and cars of several African American residents, tossing dead animals on the lawn of an alleged victim, throwing paint on homes, harassing telephone calls, yelling racial epithets at the victims and harassing Asian American employees of two Bordentown gas stations.
Crimes motivated by hate and fear affect a community more than any other crime.
They affect not just the victim, but the entire community. Paul Zoubek, director of the Division of Criminal Justice, said the defendants were each charged with conspiracy, while individual defendants were additionally charged with various counts of causing fear of unlawful bodily violence. Zoubek said the indictment was the result of an investigation by a task force of investigators and attorneys from the Office of Bias Crime and Community Relations, within the Division of Criminal Justice, the Burlington County Prosecutor's Office and the Mansfield Township Police Department. The task force was formed in the Summer of 1996, following the discovery in July of the swastika cut with machetes in the cornfield. On several dates in 1994 and 1995, Gancarz, Sentak and Reynolds threw dead animals on the lawn of Estella Sims' home, broke windows in her home, tossed eggs and tomatoes at her home and yelled racial ephitets.