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Ex-Lincoln man gets 16 years for hate crime for unprovoked attack on Black man in Oregon

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A former Lincoln man was sentenced to 16 years in federal prison Thursday for randomly stabbing a Black man in the neck at a restaurant in Oregon in 2019 in a manic episode.

Nolan Levi Strauss, 27, of Colorado Springs, Colorado, previously pleaded guilty to a federal hate crime.

Nolan Strauss

Nolan Strauss

According to court records, on the morning of Dec. 21, 2019, a 48-year-old Black man was sitting in the lobby waiting to turn in a job application at an Arby’s restaurant in Ontario, Oregon, when StraussĀ approached him from behind and cut him across his neck.

Following a struggle for the knife, the man freed himself, and Strauss was detained by a maintenance employee, who said Strauss told him he did it because the man was Black, "and I don’t like Black people.ā€

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The victim, Ronnell Hughes, was life-flighted to Boise, Idaho, for emergency surgery. The cut to his jugular vein required 50 stitches.Ā 

Strauss spent time in the Oregon State Hospital until June 2020, when a judge found him mentally fit for a state court case against him to proceed. Three months later, a grand jury indicted him with a hate crime involving an attempt to kill.

At sentencing, HughesĀ said he was seeing Strauss’ face for the first time in the courtroom.

ā€œFor someone to just sneak up on me and try to take my life from me, I’m angry,ā€ he said, according to the Malheur Enterprise of Vale, Oregon.Ā 

Strauss, who has a history of mental illness, was having a ā€œmanic episodeā€ when it happened and hadn't been taking his medication, according to his attorney.

ā€œI wouldn’t do that in my right state of mind,ā€ Strauss told the judge Thursday, according to the Malheur Enterprise. ā€œI’m happy that he survived.ā€

In the end, U.S. District Court Judge Michael McShane sentenced him to 16 years, calling the attack ā€œa remarkable act of violence.ā€

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Acting U.S. Attorney Scott Erik Asphaug for the District of Oregon said the sentence should send a clear message to anyone contemplating similar acts of violence.Ā 

ā€œHatred and bigotry will not be tolerated,ā€ he said.

Strauss had lived in Lincoln as recently as 2018, when he was sentenced to six months in jail for assaulting a Lincoln police officer.

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Public safety reporter

Lori Pilger is a Norfolk native and University of Nebraska-Lincoln graduate who has been a public safety reporter for the Journal Star since 2005.

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