Hosey: Hit with a 'hate hate crime'

When he was in eighth grade at St. Dominic’s in Bolingbrook, Rae Tuszynski was the student who lowered the flag at the end of each school day. That’s when he learned about flag etiquette and respect for the flag.

Among other things, he learned how it only should be displayed from sunrise to sunset unless illuminated with a light.

That also was the same year Tuszynski first met Bolingbrook Mayor Roger Claar. He didn’t care for him.

“I had a run-in with Roger when I was in eighth grade,” Tuszynski, 29, recently said.

Tuszynski was at the Fountaindale Public Library in Bolingbrook, and he planned to use a computer there to find a new job. He had gotten out of jail 12 days earlier.

Back when Tuszynski was in eighth grade, Claar had come to St. Dominic’s to talk about being the mayor, Tuszynski recalled, and he invited the students to ask questions. That’s when Tuszynski said he asked Claar why he left his flag up overnight without shining a light on it, especially since he had six lights outside his house that could have done the job.

“I said to him, ‘What’s up with that?’ ” Tuszynski remembered. “He stammers and says, ‘That light always gets stolen.’ And that’s when I knew that man was a liar and that he had no respect for the country in which he holds office.”

More than 15 years later, Tuszynski pedaled his bike past Claar’s house on Concord Lane. They only live a few blocks from each other, and Tuszynski knows the house, he said, because his T-ball coach from when he was a kid lived the street.

“He still has his six stupid lights,” Tuszynski said. “One’s shining on his flagpole but not on his flag. And I was just like, ‘[expletive] this guy.’ “

So about 5 a.m. on a day soon after, Tuszynski said he spray-painted such slogans as, “Trump lover,” “Eat the rich,” “Corrupt Roger Claar resign,” “Bash Nazi scum,” “Nazi Trump [expletive],” “Nazis [expletive] off,” and “an anarchist was here.”

And he also drew some swastikas, which he said was commentary on the beliefs of Claar and Donald Trump, and not because he is a proponent of Nazi ideology. He now believes that is what caused him the most trouble for his stunt, that “because I put the swastika on there, I got hit with the hate crime.”

“With all due respect, I’m a transgender Puerto Rican and you [have a] hate crime against an old white man,” Tuszynski said.

He got hit not just with the hate crime charges, but also criminal damage and defacement to property, theft and threatening a public official, and he was hauled off to the Will County jail.

“At first, they didn’t know what to do with me,” Tuszynski said, telling how he was put in a pod for women before he was sent back to a holding cell for 45 days, “which really sucked.”

Tuszynski said he then was put in another pod for women, which was “like the high school cafeteria. It’s so dramatic.”

When Tuszynski went to court the first time, the prosecutor, “an old white guy,” told the judge they were seeking a five- to 10-year prison sentence and asked for a $500,000 bond.

The judge went with $150,000. To get out, Tuszynski needed $15,000, which he didn’t have.

“If I had close to $10,000, I’d spend it on top surgery,” he said.

After 93 days in jail, Tuszynski’s public defender came to him with an idea for getting out.

“She was like, ‘Do you want to go home today? You have to plea,’ ” Tuszynski said

So he did, pleading guilty to threatening a public official, criminal damage to property and a hate crime, even though he said he never actually threatened anyone and he didn’t commit a hate crime. And it’s that last one, the hate crime conviction on his record, that bothers him the most.

“It really upsets me,” said Tuszynski, who said he protested with Black Lives Matter in the wake of Michael Brown’s death.

“Someone who is so vehemently against bigotry and racism has been branded with a hate crime,” he said, telling how he thinks it would have been more appropriate to charge him with a “hate hate crime,” since what he actually hates is bigotry.

Will County State’s Attorney James Glasgow’s office justified the hate crime charge by saying Claar was targeted for his “perceived creed,” which supposedly involves his conservative political beliefs and support for Trump, even though that doesn’t truly fit the bill as far as being a “creed” in any sincere sense of the word.

But Glasgow must think so.

It’s not clear what Claar thinks. He failed to return calls for comment on the case and what Tuszynski had to say about him, which was that he is a “racist.”

He also thinks Glasgow’s office twisted the law to punish him.

“Honestly, I think it’s disgusting, and it shows you what’s wrong with this country – we’re attacking these people these laws were meant to protect,” Tuszynski said.

“I didn’t know Trump supporters were a protected class,” he said. “That still blows my mind.”

• Joseph Hosey is the news editor of The Herald-News, another Shaw Media publication. You can reach him at 815-280-4094, jhosey@shawmedia.com or on Twitter @JoeHosey.