Steve Lee Dominguez, Bias-Motivated Interference, California 2021

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA

A Diamond Bar man is facing federal charges for allegedly disrupting a ‘Stop Asian Hate’ rally in March 2021 by running a red light and yelling racial epithets at participants.

Steve Lee Dominguez, 56, is charged with two counts of bias-motivated interference with federal protected activities, according to a federal grand jury indictment.

The incident occurred on March 21, 2021, at the intersection of Diamond Bar Boulevard and Grand Avenue, where a group of rally participants had gathered peacefully and lawfully crossed the streets using the marked pedestrian crosswalk.

Dominguez allegedly yelled, “Go back to China!” and other racial slurs at the demonstrators before deliberately driving his black Honda four-door sedan through the intersection’s crosswalk at the red light, making an illegal U-turn and cutting off the route of several rally participants.

One of the victims was an Asian woman carrying a sign that read, “Stop Asian Hate.” Another victim was a minor Black female rally participant who carried a sign that read, “End the Violence Against Asians.” A 9-year-old child was also cut off in the crosswalk, narrowly missing contact with Dominguez’s car, according to the indictment.

Dominguez allegedly pulled over and continued to yell racial epithets and threats at the demonstrators before calling the police and falsely reporting that the rally participants were blocking the street.

He is expected to be arraigned this afternoon in United States District Court in downtown Los Angeles. If convicted of the two charges in the indictment, Dominguez would face a statutory maximum penalty of 20 years in federal prison.

The FBI investigated this matter, and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department initially responded to the scene and assisted in this matter.

Assistant United States Attorney Veronica Dragalin of the Public Corruption and Civil Rights Section is prosecuting this case. Anyone with information related to this incident or other hate crimes is encouraged to call the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office at (310) 477-6565 or report tips online at https://tips.fbi.gov.

Source: https://www.justice.gov/usao-cdca/pr/diamond-bar-man-arrested-indictment-charging-him-using-his-car-intimidate-demonstrators