GEORGIA MAN SENTENCED FOR CROSS BURNING IN MOULTRIE

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The Justice Department today announced the sentencing of Moultrie, Georgia resident Michael Craig Jordan for his role in an April 2002 cross-burning. Jordan’s co-defendant, David Archie Morris, is awaiting trial for his alleged participation in this incident.

Jordan pled guilty to criminal civil rights violations in November 2003. He admitted to participating in the April 2002 burning of a wooden cross with the purpose of preventing a biracial African-American and Hispanic couple - as well as their two young children - from moving into the house next door.

Judge Clay D. Land Jordan of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Georgia sentenced the defendant to seventy-seven months in prison.

Over the past three years, the Civil Rights Division has brought thirty-five cases charging fifty defendants involved in cross burning.

Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Georgia Dean Daskal and trial attorney Michael Khoury from the Criminal Section of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division jointly prosecuted this case.

More information about the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division can be found at <http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/crt-home.html>.

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04-056