Man who attacked Asian American man in Florida is acquitted of hate crime
A Florida jury acquitted a man of a hate crime after he was accused of attacking an Asian American man, breaking his jaw and shouting racial slurs at him.
A jury in Okaloosa County, Florida, acquitted a man of a hate crime after he was accused of attacking an Asian American man, breaking his jaw and shouting racial slurs at him.
Allan Chandler Muller, 36, was found not guilty on Wednesday of aggravated battery causing bodily harm or disability, with a hate crime enhancement, after a three-day trial, according to court documents. The decision follows a 2020 incident in which Muller was accused of shouting racial taunts at victim John Mealor, knocking him unconscious before kicking him in the face.
“While we are disappointed in the verdict for Mr. Mealor’s sake, we respect the jury’s decision as the finder of fact,” Assistant State Attorney Salvador A. Gomez Jr. said in an email to NBC News. He declined to comment further on the case.
“It is a shame this case went this far, and that the only way we could resolve it was taking it to a jury trial,” T.S. Lupella, lead defense counsel for Muller, said in a press release.
According to a police report, Mealor and a friend were looking for his girlfriend near a harbor, at one point asking individuals on a docked boat if they had seen her. Muller, who was on the boat, allegedly told the victim he looked “sketchy,” the report said, and ordered them to leave before shouting racial slurs at Mealor, who is of Asian descent and blind in one eye.
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