DOJ Case Summary: U.S. v. Nicholson

In the early morning hours of July 28, 1998, three caucasian men set fire to a Hmong (Asian) family's home in Manitowoc, Wisconsin, using gasoline to accelerate the fire as a mother, father, and six children slept inside. A neighbor noticed the fire, called authorities, and helped pull the young children through a bedroom window to safety. Although the victims survived the fire, they lost their home and all of their possessions. Fire officials later said that the victims would have died if they had remained in the house for more than another minute or two.

The three men who set the fire – Andy Franz, Mike Nicholson, and Augustine LaBarge – did not know the victims, and chose the house solely because they had noticed that an Asian family lived there. Two days previously, the same three men had joined up with several other friends – including Miguel Rodela, Casey Tegelman, and Tom Vanlannen – in another attempt to target Asian victims because of their race. On the earlier occasion, the group had driven from Manitowoc to the nearby town of Two Rivers in search of Hmong people to injure. Armed with two shotguns and a quarter stick of explosive, the group planned to detonate the explosive to lure a Hmong family out of their home so that two members of the group could then shoot the victims. Rodela lit the fuse, as planned, and placed the explosive under a van parked in front of the victims’ home; however, the plan was interrupted when the group then saw a police car patrolling the area and quickly fled the scene.

In 2002, all six defendants pled guilty to civil rights offenses related to these attacks. Nicholson pled guilty to violating two counts of 18 U.S.C. 241 (civil rights conspiracy); one count of 42 U.S.C. 3631 (interference with housing rights); and one count of 18 U.S.C. 844(h) (use of fire in the commission of a felony). Franz pled guilty to two counts of 241 and one count of 18 U.S.C. 924(c); LaBarge pled guilty to two counts of 241; and Tegelman, Rodela, and Vanlannen each pled guilty to one count of 241.