Suzanne Craft, 55, lived in a subdivision in Lake Forest, Louisville, Jefferson County, Kentucky, United States. In 2007, she gave birth to a daughter.
In 2020, Craft sent multiple threatening letters through the U.S. Postal Service to an interracial couple with children who lived in the same neighborhood as her. Many of the letters contained threats of violence and racial slurs.
Among Craft’s neighbors in Lake Forest were U.S. Navy veteran Michela Pineda, who is Filipino, and her Latina wife Connnie Pineda. The married couple and their five children moved there in April 2019.
In August 2019, Craft and her daughter started verbally harassing the Pinedas with racial slurs. Between May 22, 2020 and June 27, 2020, Craft went to the Pinedas’ property three times and damaged it for no reason other than to annoy or frighten the victims.
In the second week of July 2020, Craft was served a criminal complaint summons on three counts of criminal mischief and three counts of harassing communications. She failed to appear in court on those charges.
On July 15, 2020, the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office arrested Craft and she was charged with criminal mischief and harassing communication. After being ordered to stay away from the Pinedas, she sent a series of threatening letters to them.
In August 2020, Craft was found guilty of being in contempt of the court for breaking the no-contact order. She was sentenced to seven days in jail and seven days on house arrest for the contempt charges.
Between November 2020 and December 2020, Craft vandalized two homes in Lake Forest with threatening and racially targeted messages.
In August 2022, a judge ordered Craft to stay in the Oldham County Jail and denied bond for her. She was also indicted in a separate case on four counts of sending threats through the mail, which she pleaded not guilty to.
On March 10, 2023, a jury convicted Craft of five counts of mailing threatening communications with racial intent. For each of these five counts, she sent the threatening communications to her neighbors in Lake Forest because of their actual or perceived race or color, the jury found.
On July 27, 2023, Craft was sentenced to nine years in prison. Her sentence will be followed by three years of supervised release.
CONAN Daily 