Photo : Ithaca, N.Y., Police Department

Updated: Wednesday, June 20, 2018, 6:02 p.m.: Greenwood pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct in April. He admitted to using the racial slur but denied being involved in the physical attack. The original charges, including a charge of attempted assault as a hate crime, were dropped due to a “level of doubt.”


Earlier:



A Canadian citizen studying at Cornell University on a student visa could be deported to his homeland if convicted of a racist attack on a black fellow student last year in an incident that sent the victim to the hospital.


As the Cornell Daily Sun notes, John Greenwood, Class of 2020, is facing three charges after being accused in the racially motivated attack. His lawyer, Ronald P. Fischetti, also confirmed that a conviction could mean that Greenwood would be deported from the U.S. and forbidden from re-entering.

“He would thus be exiled from the United States, an extraordinarily harsh consequence, preventing him from, among other things, ever pursuing an education at a college or university in the United States,” Fischetti wrote in a motion pushing to have all of Greenwood’s charges dismissed.

Poor lil’ guy. The horror! If you ask me, Greenwood may be getting the sweeter deal, not having to deal with a maniac as president, but I digress.


According to the Daily Sun, a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement official had already reached out to the city of Ithaca, N.Y., where Cornell is based, following Greenwood’s arrest, requesting the date and location of Greenwood’s arraignment before the information was even released to the public.

Ithaca declined to provide the information, given the city’s sanctuary-city legislation, a city official, who did not want to be identified, told the newspaper.


This past September, Greenwood, then 19, was charged with assault and aggravated harassment after he allegedly punched a fellow student and called him the n-word during a late-night altercation outside the dorms.

The student told outlets that he had come home at around 1 a.m. to find a group of students arguing with his housemates. When he asked those students to leave, they ganged up on him, assaulted him and called him racial slurs.