A Saginaw doctor has been charged with a federal hate crime for allegedly intimidating Black Lives Matter supporters in a series of actions involving nooses and threatening messages left for Starbucks employees across the state, the Department of Justice announced Wednesday.
According to court documents, Kenneth Pilon, 61, an optometrist, called nine Starbucks stores across the state in 2020 and told the person who answered the phone to relay this message to any Starbucks employees wearing BLM T-shirts: "The only good (nN-word) is a dead (N-word)"
Pilon also allegedly told one employee, “I’m gonna go out and lynch me a (N-word)."
Pilon allegedly left these messages two days after Starbucks announced that it would provide 250,000 BLM T-shirts to employees who wanted to wear them during their shifts. This was the summer of 2020, when the nation saw an outburst of protests condemning the May 2020 killing of George Floyd at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer.
According to court records, Pilon left these messages at Starbucks stores in Saginaw, Flint, Birch Run, Allen Park, Oak Park and Ann Arbor on June 14, 2020, over the course of about an hour, starting at 4:39 p.m. and ending at 5:42 p.m. — leaving his last message for baristas in Ann Arbor.
One month after making those calls, court records show, Pilon left nooses in Kroger and Walmart parking lots in Saginaw, including one he tucked inside a beverage cooler at a 7-Eleven store with a hand-written note attached that read: “An accessory to be worn with your ‘BLM’ t-shirt. Happy protesting!' "
Among those who found the nooses was Donald Simon, a 43-year-old Black man from Saginaw who is in a bi-racial marriage. According to his wife, Simon went out for a cup of coffee one morning and found a noose inside his truck with the handwritten note attached. It had been slipped through a crack as the window was down slightly, she said.
"It was like a numbness ... that this person hated us so much," Simon's wife, Regina, recalled in a Wednesday interview with the Free Press.
Regina Simon, who is Mexican and White, said she knew the FBI had been investigating her case, and believed that justice would eventually prevail.
"I’m relieved that this man is going to be held accountable," Regina Simon said. I’m shocked at all this man did. I didn’t know anything about Starbucks — or the previous nooses."
Pilon is charged with six counts of interfering with federally protected activities - a misdemeanor punishable by up to one year in prison.
"Specifically, Pilon intimidated and attempted to intimidate citizens from participating lawfully in speech and peaceful assembly opposing the denial of Black people’s right to enjoy police protection and services free from brutality," states the charging document.