Fox News has been cited as an excuse in the case of a California man who threatened a local branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). Michael Malowney, the defense attorney for John David Weissinger, pleaded the judge for leniency because his client was drunk, and watched too much of the US news channel.
Weissinger pleaded guilty last year to making threats against the CAIR office. A female victim testified that he left a voicemail threatening to kill her and her colleagues following the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris in January. He also pleaded guilty to a gun charge after the police found an illegal assault rifle in his home during a search.
His lawyer claimed that he was very drunk, and made the threats “after a week of watching Fox News, over and over.” The outrage on the news channel provoked him to make the threats, according to the lawyer.
However the judge did not buy his argument, sentencing Weissinger to the maximum sentence of one year, with five years of probation.
CAIR stated that while authorities did well to investigate and prosecute Weissinger, the case should have been taken up by the FBI. It claims that had the accused had “a Middle Eastern sounding name,” the federal authorities “would have been all over this.”
