San Diego (special) -- Over three years, a concerted campaign of insult and intimidation had been aimed against the Jewish community as well as other minority groups by a group which we now know was led by a young, white supremacist named Alex Curtis. 

Last Saturday, the San Diego Union reported that U.S. Atty. Gregory Vega has agreed to a plea bargain for Curtis, 25, in which he will publicly apologize and express remorse for his various hate crimes and serve up to three years in prison. His sentencing will be in June.

Curtis' attorney, Bernard Skomal, wants the judge to send Curtis to a "boot camp" program for six months, followed by a halfway house and house arrest for the balance of his term. Prosecutors have said they will not oppose the request.

It is said that "time heals all wounds." Except perhaps for those people who were the targets of the anger of Curtis and his band, many people apparently have forgotten the series of acts aimed at making Jews and other minorities feel like they are living in America on borrowed time.

We're at the point where the crimes can be summarized in a neat paragraph. The Union said the campaign of harassment "included leaving threatening and racist messages at the offices or homes of four San Diego County civic leaders (Rep. Bob Filner, La Mesa Mayor Art Madrid, civil right activist Clara Harris and Morris Casuto, regional director of the Anti Defamation League.) "He was also charged with helping to spray-paint anti-Semitic graffiti on two synagogues."

The HERITAGE had the unfortunate duty to record the outrages by Curtis and followers as they occurred, as well as some crimes whose perpetrators never have been proven.

The first of those cited was the placement during Memorial Day Weekend in 1997 of a hate sticker on the plate glass window of Filner's district office. A cartoon picture of Fred Flintstone urged: "Yabba Dabba Doo: Kill Every Jew." Another said "At My command...Slay them in My Presence." 

Whereas anti-Semitic flyers frequently had been thrown onto streets in various neighborhoods in San Diego, police said that inasmuch as no one specifically was being threatened, the hate literature had to be considered, however odious, as protected free speech. But the slogan "Kill Every Jew" left specifically on Filner's window was taken as a direct threat against Filner, a federal office holder. That enabled the Federal Bureau of Investigation to enter the case.

Early in June, 1997, Tifereth Israel Synagogue was spray painted with such slogans as "Die Jew Boy" and "We're Back" -- the latter apparently a reference to the fact that Tifereth Israel Synagogue, which is home to the New Life Club of Holocaust Survivors, had been the subject of a similar spray-painting eight years before. A second message, incorporating a swastika and the common sexual obscenity--was spraypainted on the exterior wall of an alcove that had been built especially to house a Holocaust Torah. "F__ the Jews," it said.

Other swastikas were accompanied by such slogans as "white power" and Hail Hitler."

Also in 1997, Mayor Art Madrid was being harassed. After he denounced the spray painting of a La Mesa community center that had occurred just prior to a scheduled observance honoring the memory of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., the mayor himself became the subject of harassment. Hate literature defaming Mexicans was dumped on his lawn. Another time, a message was spray painted on his door. "Get out, beaner scum," said the message, accompanied by a swastika and a scull. Next, the mayor found a package on his lawn, tied with a red bow. Inside was a practice hand grenade. That "shocked the hell out of me," Madrid later told HERITAGE. "A rush of fear went through me."

La Mesa police arrested Curtis in summer of 1997 after literature began appearing with a facsimile of a La Mesa police badge accompanied by the legend: "Help stop non-white crime. Support the La Mesa Police Department." The literature bore the telephone number of La Mesa Detective Dan Willis, who once had questioned Curtis when the latter was distributing hate literature at the Grossmont Shopping Center. Police believed that Curtis had reproduced the badge from the business card. They arrested Curtis and a friend, Walter Kuttner, on Aug. 26. Following a search of their homes, charges of illegal possession of various weapons, ranging from brass knuckles to explosive materials, were added. These were all misdemeanor counts.

Curtis was not the only hater active at the time. Tom Metzger meanwhile invited callers to his telephone call-in line to tell Casuto, the regional ADL director, just what they thought of him. He put out Casuto's home telephone number, address, pager number, car license number, and a credit card number account.

In November of 1997, Casuto's son, Simon, then 9, saw a taped swastika on the window of their home. The boy was so frightened that he badly stubbed his toe as he ran to tell his parents that someone had come to their house in the middle of the night, opened the screen door and taped the hate symbol to their front door. 

A few days later, Alan Bersin--then serving as U.S. Attorney in San Diego -announced the appointment of Casuto as chairman of a San Diego Hate Crimes Community Working Group, pursuant to a directive by President Bill Clinton that such groups be formed in every federal judicial district. Others named to the group were Rabbi Martin Lawson of Temple Emanu-El, then school superintendent Bertha Pendleton, Father Dennis Mikulanis of the Roman Catholic Diocese; Chancellor Augustine Gallego of the San Diego Community College; Rana Sampson, USD's director of public safety; Sheriff Bill Kolender; then-San Diego Police Chief Jerry Sanders, City Club President George Mitrovich, Chula Vista Police Chief Rick Emerson, and Solar Turbine's manager of community relations Wendy Swanson.

In late December of 1998, vandals struck Adat Shalom Synagogue in Poway. Amid the usual swastikas were such slogans as "Get Out!"; "Back to Israel!" and something new--the name 'Casuto'--sprayed in direct challenge to the ADL director and Hate Crimes Community Working Group.
ADL offered a $5,000 reward, and later increased that amount to $20,000 for information leading to the arrest of the perpetrators.

In June of 1999, spray painters left Satanic symbols--the pentagram and the numbers '666' on St. Andrew's Episcopal Church. Anti-Arab slogans were painted on the Islamic Center in the Kearny Mesa area. A handwritten Hate Message, calling for death to Jews, was mailed to the Heritage post office box.

In October of 1999, vandals struck Temple Judea in Vista, spraypainting such symbols as "88" and the swastika, along with the slogan "Weice Macht," apparently a misspelling of the German phrase"Weiss Macht" for "White Power."

Since then, Chabad at University City has been the object of various attacks.

Curtis was arrested Nov. 9, 2000 at the home of his parents, from which he ran a web site urging white supremacy. Since then, he has been imprisoned at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in downtown San Diego.

Is the plea bargain appropriate? Or is it too lenient?

"I haven't seen any contrition on his part," Rabbi Leonard Rosenthal of Tifereth Israel Synagogue commented to the San Diego Union.

"It's difficult to say whether it's enough of a punishment," responded Mayor Madrid to that newspaper's questions. "How do you equate it with the amount of damage to your psyche and your family. It's never tit for tat."