US couple convicted of anti-Muslim harassment

HOUSTON, Texas (AA) – A couple in the US state of New Jersey was convicted of harassing their Muslim neighbor for several years.

William Ong, 76, and his 73-year-old wife Betty were convicted of harassment and intimidation in Hudson County Superior Court.

Investigators determined the Ongs made threatening and harassing statements to a Muslim neighbor about his religion between 2016 and 2018.

According to police, at the time of the couple’s arrest in 2018, William Ong imitated shooting his neighbor with his finger. He also pointed at the victim’s 3- and 7-year-old children making a slashing motion with his finger across his own throat.

Investigators say Beverly Ong called the victim “dirty” and told him “you are going to rot in hell.”

“Hudson County is one of the most diverse communities in the country and there is no place for hate or discrimination here, or anywhere,” said Hudson County Prosecutor Esther Suarez in a statement.

“The Hudson county Prosecutor’s Office is committed to prosecuting anyone responsible for bias crimes to the fullest extent of the law,” she said.

The Ongs were found guilty of hate crime after a two-day trial. The couple is scheduled to be sentenced June 7.

This is not the family’s first run-in with the law. Beverly Ong and her daughter were previously acquitted of a similar offense in 2012. However, both were convicted of harassing and damaging the property of their Iranian neighbor.

In that case, the victim testified that during the course of three years, Beverly Ong’s daughter hurled racial epithets at him, called him a terrorist, told him to go back to Iran and accused him of practicing Arab voodoo.

Islamophobia across the US has risen to alarming levels, threatening the life, security and dignity of the country’s sizeable Muslim minority of nearly 4 million.