Judge upholds hate crime charge against Christian facing 5 years in jail for toppling satanic altar
An Iowa judge recently denied a motion to toss out the hate crime charge against a Christian U.S. Navy veteran who potentially faces five years in prison for toppling a satanic statue in the Iowa state Capitol last year.
The legal team for Michael Cassidy, which filed the motion to dismiss the hate crime charge against him from Polk County Attorney Kimberly Graham, said the judge told them on Tuesday that he will face a jury over the charge, according to the Republic Sentinel.
They argue Cassidy is being legally targeted because of his Christian faith.
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"Despite the inability of the prosecution to find a single instance in Iowa, or another state with a similar hate crime statute where the law had been applied to an organization, the judge denied our motion to dismiss," Cassidy's attorney David Younts told the outlet. "We believe that the state is uniquely targeting our client with a hate crime because of his religious faith."
Cassidy, a former GOP candidate for the Mississippi House of Representatives, drew national attention in December when he traveled to Des Moines from Mississippi and pushed over a red-cloaked statue of Baphomet where it stood near a Nativity scene.
The statue was erected by the Iowa chapter of The Satanic Temple and stood in front of a candle-lit altar adorned with the seven "Fundamental Tenets" of the organization, which claims not to believe in a personal devil.
The statue prompted fierce debate even among Christian state legislators and pastors, as The Christian Post reported. Republican state Rep. Jon Dunwell, a pastor, acknowledged that while he personally finds the altar "objectionable" and "evil," he didn't think the government should be arbitrating religious displays.
Republican state Rep. Brad Sherman, who is also a pastor, argued the opposite, claiming the display violated the Iowa state Constitution. He urged Republican Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds to order its removal, which she declined to do despite issuing a statement calling it "absolutely objectionable."
After turning himself into authorities upon tossing the statue's ram head in the garbage, Cassidy was first charged with fourth-degree criminal mischief, a misdemeanor.
In January, the Polk County Attorney's Office escalated the charge to felony third-degree mischief and a hate crime under Iowa state law, according to the Des Moines Register.
"Evidence shows the defendant made statements to law enforcement and the public indicating he destroyed the property because of the victim's religion," Lynn Hicks, a spokesman for the Polk County Attorney's Office, said at the time.
Graham, the county attorney whose office enhanced the charge against Cassidy, is a Democrat whose campaign was flooded with hundreds of thousands of dollars from Justice and Public Safety PAC, a George Soros-backed organization. She was elected top prosecutor in 2022 after pledging to reduce incarceration rates by easing up on low-level crimes such as marijuana possession.
Cassidy's attorney argued that he was not guilty of a hate crime, and that he was instead moved by a righteous desire to topple a symbol of evil antithetical to American values.
"Our client was motivated by a desire to protect the people of Iowa from having their sincerely held religious beliefs mocked by an organization that specifically chooses a symbol of hatred," Younts told the Sentinel. "The promotion of a symbol of lies and death is a direct attack on the ideals that our nation was founded on and that are necessary for a free society."
During an interview with CP in December, Cassidy argued that Christians who believe the U.S. Constitution protects a satanic altar are "overcomplicating" blatant evil that they should be resisting.
"The people who wrote our Constitution would be shocked to think of defending Satan as consistent with their beliefs when they wrote the laws that govern our nation," he said.
"People start overcomplicating the truth, which is that God is great and should be honored, and the devil is evil and should not be honored," he said. "I think people are tying themselves in knots trying to justify it, and it's really a lot simpler than that."
Cassidy's legal defense fund, which has drawn public support from figures such as Pastor John MacArthur, had raised more than $130,000 as of Thursday.
