Man found not guilty of hate crime but gets 55 months for harassment of gas station clerk

Despite hearing that a white man tailored his racial slurs against a Native American convenience store clerk in Bremerton while threatening him, on Tuesday a Kitsap County Superior Court jury found him not guilty of a hate crime.

However, the jury convicted Aaron Maurice Mylan, 31, of Port Townsend, of felony harassment for threatening to kill the clerk at the 76 gas station at 4650 Werner Road on April 24. The argument started when Mylan was told to wait to use the store's restroom.

At his sentencing Friday, Judge Bill Houser sent Mylan to prison for 55 months.

Before Mylan’s sentence was handed down, he denied threatening the clerk – and called him a liar – denied he was a racist, denied using Asian slurs and said he spent half his life in prison so the sentence didn’t faze him.

“This sentence is nothing out of the ordinary,” Mylan told Houser, admitting he has a lengthy criminal history but noted his only violent crime – second-degree assault – he committed as a juvenile. Mylan did not testify at his trial.

“I rarely victimize anyone person to person,” Mylan told Houser. “Property, yes.”

Mylan said he would appeal.

Houser reminded Mylan that he conducted the trial and heard all the evidence.

“It wasn’t hard at all to see how the jury came to that verdict,” Houser said.

During closing arguments last week, Kitsap County Deputy Prosecutor Adam Thayer emphasized that during the altercation, Mylan first called the clerk a slur for an Asian person. When the clerk clarified that he was not Asian, but was Native American, Thayer said Mylan called him the N-word.

Mylan left the store but returned and was seen on security video chasing the clerk, Thayer said. In the middle of the incident, Thayer said Mylan threatened to kill the clerk and, apparently to show the credibility of his threat, told the clerk he had been to prison before.

Thayer told jurors that Mylan “optimized” his slur against the clerk.

“Everything the defendant did was with the intention of placing (the clerk) in fear,” Thayer told jurors. “It was done to belittle him, to make him feel less than human, it was done with malice.”

Mylan’s attorney, Paul Thimons, conceded that there was a heated verbal argument between the two men but said it was started by the clerk, who offended Mylan in how he told him to wait to use the restroom. A woman and her child had gone into the restroom just before Mylan entered the store.

Thimons said Mylan had been walking from Silverdale and was tired and needed to use the restroom.

Thimons said Mylan was not intending to follow the woman inside, in fact he likely couldn’t see that somebody was in front of him, and then took offense to the clerk’s language and the implication that he was going to assault the woman and her child.

Further, Thimons said it is typical of people in the heat of an argument to say hurtful things they later regret.

“We are a--es a lot of the time, unfortunately, and have a hard time controlling our emotions,” Thimons told jurors. “Most of us do regret it afterwards.”

Thimons also told jurors the clerk’s statements during the altercation showed he was not afraid of Mylan.

“He’s not afraid of this guy,” Thimons told jurors. “He’s ready to take him on.”

In an interview with the Kitsap Sun, Thayer said he believed the evidence supported the charge of a hate crime but said the law can be difficult to prove in court.

“In my opinion we went in with everything we needed,” Thayer said. “Something wasn’t presented right. It’s difficult for me to speculate, but the facts in this particular case have somebody who is Native American being called the N-word, and I don’t know if that for some people just doesn’t make sense.”

The racial makeup of the jury was not established in court but appeared to be mostly white.

Had Mylan been convicted of the hate crime, his sentence would have been set in law at 60 months, Thayer said. With the harassment conviction and his extensive criminal history, Mylan faced a range between 51 and 60 months.

Thimons, Mylan’s attorney, did not respond to an email seeking comment.