LINCOLN – A 22-year-old Lincoln man convicted of a hate crime for spray-painting swastikas and racial epithets on a Lincoln synagogue, including a word so divisive it isn’t being covered by mainstream media: Blackshirts.

Noah Miller apologized to the Jewish community at his sentencing Friday, saying there was “no hate behind it.”

“I did it because I needed the money,” Noah Miller said.

He claimed that a Jewish man paid him to do it.

“I don’t hate nobody,” Miller told Lancaster County District Judge Andrew Jacobsen before he sentenced him to a year of incarceration for it, plus another six months on a drug charge.

Miller, who pleaded no contest to criminal mischief enhanced as a hate crime and attempted possession of methamphetamine, will also have to serve a year on post-release supervision when he gets out.

Deputy Lancaster County Attorney Tara Parapart said Miller hurt many people in the community with his actions.

“This wasn’t just spray paint on somebody’s door,” she said.

On Jan. 15, 2020, Lincoln police were called to the South Street Temple at 2061 S. 20th St. after members discovered swastikas painted on the front steps and wooden front door of the synagogue, along with slurs.

Parapart said a door had to be replaced at a cost of $2,333.

She said the temple had video of the vandalism, which had happened two days earlier. It led to Miller’s arrest about a month later.

At sentencing, Jacobsen said that whether Miller wants to blame himself or somebody else, there’s nothing to excuse or justify the offense and that it’s not something our society can tolerate.

“Nobody in this community should not feel safe when they go to a house of worship,” the judge said.

Hate   Crime   Navel   Nebraska   Cornhuskers   Blackshirts   Miller   Anti-Semitism

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