A Fort Lauderdale man was sentenced Friday to three years in federal prison for attacking a Muslim U.S. Postal Service worker while she was on her assigned route in Broward County last October, about two weeks after Israel declared war against Hamas following their unexpected Oct. 7 attack that killed about 1,200 people.
Kenneth Pinkney, 47, was charged federally with a hate crime enhancement and pleaded guilty in April to assaulting the federal employee, federal prosecutors said in a news release Friday.
The postal worker first came in contact with Pinkney on Oct. 9 while delivering mail on the route she has been assigned to for over a decade, according to a factual proffer in his case, the facts agreed on by the defendant and prosecution. The woman, who is not named in the document, was wearing her hijab as she always had, and Pinkney was “looking at her in what she interpreted as an aggressive manner” when she drove by him in her USPS truck.
Pinkney attacked her on Oct. 24 while she was about two-and-a-half hours into her route, the factual proffer said. He passed her in the USPS car while riding a bicycle and made a hand gesture at her imitating pointing a gun. The victim said she first thought he was asking for food and water, and she asked Pinkney if she could help him.
Pinkney then turned his bicycle around, made the gesture more aggressively and got off the bicycle to walk toward her, the proffer said. He cursed at her and said, “If I had a gun,” and “go back to your country.”
“All this time, Pinkney continued to make the same hand gesture. The victim turned and faced the USPS truck and heard Pinkney say, ‘go back to your country’ multiple times while tapping her on the back of the head with two fingers,” the court document said.
The postal worker got into her truck, but Pinkney’s verbal assault continued and then escalated.
He spit on the eagle emblazoned on the side of the truck, then spit on the woman, the proffer said. He then unsuccessfully attempted to pull her from the truck by her leg. Pinkney got into the truck, grabbed the woman’s neck with one hand and grabbed at her hijab with the other.
The postal worker struggled with him during the attack, trying to prevent him from removing it, but he eventually lifted it off of the woman, the document said. Her face was scratched after the fight.
After pulling off the hijab, Pinkney then started pulling on her USPS apron, the document said. The woman was able to put her head covering back on and exited it the truck, feeling trapped.
After the struggle in the truck, Pinkney called her a slur and said “f— Islam,” the document said. Both the victim and Pinkney called 911.
He was arrested on state charges the same day.
At the time of the attack, the Council on American-Islamic Relations said it had received over 774 complaints, including complaints of bias incidents, since Oct. 7. For comparison, the Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization received only 63 complaints in August that year, according to an Oct. 25, 2023, press release.
The Associated Press reported Friday that the Health Ministry in Gaza said the death toll in Gaza is nearly 40,000 since the start of the war.
After his release from prison, Pinkney will be on supervised release for three years.
