A couple who burned a cross to gain support for the man who became the first Black mayor of Colorado Springs was found guilty on Friday of planning the act and spreading false information about it.
Prosecutors said Ashley Blackcloud, who is Indigenous and Black, and Derrick Bernard, who is Black, set up the fake incident and shared it to help the candidate. But prosecutors said their actions still counted as a criminal threat.
The cross was burned in 2023 during the mayoral race in Colorado’s second-largest city. Pictures and videos of the burning cross, placed in front of a campaign sign marked with a racial slur, were sent to local news outlets to support Yemi Mobolade’s campaign.
A jury found Blackcloud and Bernard guilty of using the internet and email to send a threat or false message about an attempt to scare Mobolade with fire. They were also found guilty of planning to do this.
Blackcloud’s lawyer admitted at the trial that Blackcloud helped arrange the cross burning and the sign damage. Bernard said he did not take part in setting it up, but admitted during the trial that he shared the images even though he knew they were fake.
Cross burning is protected as free speech under the First Amendment, so the case focused on whether the act was meant to threaten.
The jury made its decision after around four hours of discussion. Blackcloud and Bernard could each face up to 10 years in prison for the most serious charge.
Prosecutors said that even if the couple’s goal was to help Mobolade, he felt threatened. His family bought fire ladders and a trauma kit for their home after the incident.
A Department of Homeland Security building“What was Yemi and his family supposed to see through the flames? A joke? Theater?” said Assistant U.S. Attorney Bryan Fields. He said the pair “needed the public to believe this was a real threat for it to have the effect that they wanted of influencing an election.”
Fields compared it to a student faking a bomb threat to avoid a test, causing fear and disruption.
Blackcloud’s lawyer, Britt Cobb, argued that the act was just “meant to be a political stunt, political theater” to show that racism still exists in Colorado Springs. Blackcloud “did not mean this as a real threat of violence,” Cobb said.
Cobb said Mobolade likely knew it was fake early on, as his campaign staff wrote in text messages that they were sure it was staged. She added that Mobolade didn’t call the police right away.
“If he knows it’s a hoax, there’s no way it’s a threat,” she said.
Mobolade has strongly denied being involved. But Cobb suggested he might have known something, pointing to messages between Bernard and Mobolade before and after the cross burning. The FBI did not find proof that Mobolade took part in planning it.
“You cannot maliciously convey a threat,” said Bernard’s lawyer, Tyrone Glover, “when you’re trying in your own way to help somebody.”
