A California man was sentenced to 82 months in prison for committing a federal hate crime in connection with attacking a Black man with a knife in Santa Cruz, California. The sentence was handed down by the Hon. Edward J. Davila, U.S. District Judge for the Northern District of California.
Ole Hougen, 45, of Santa Cruz, California, was convicted of the crime on April 9. According to evidence presented at trial, Hougen confronted a 29-year-old Black man who was crossing the street in Santa Cruz. Hougen began screaming racial slurs at him. Hougen then brandished a nine-inch knife and slashed multiple times at the man’s head, chest and stomach, while yelling the racial slurs. A witness testified that Hougen slashed and stabbed at the victim’s head and chest approximately 10-20 times. At the time of the attack, Hougen was on probation after pleading no contest to state charges that he committed a racially motivated assault on a different Black man in 2018. The trial also included evidence of several other incidents where Hougen threatened or committed violent acts while yelling racial slurs. This conviction represents Hougen’s fourth known racially motivated attack against Black men in the last seven years.
A federal grand jury indicted Hougen on Nov. 17, 2020, charging him with a violation of the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act. After a six-day trial, a jury convicted Hougen of the charge. It is the first conviction and sentencing in the Northern District of California under the Shepard-Byrd Act, which was signed into law by President Barack Obama in 2009.