A former downtown Portland restaurant employee was sentenced to 1 ½ years in jail Thursday after prosecutors say he yelled racist slurs at an African-American customer, threatened the customer by raising a chair over his head and smashed her iPhone on the floor, destroying it.

Kelly Wade Roberts, 36, pleaded guilty to the hate crime of second-degree intimidation for targeting the 58-year-old woman because of her race while he worked at the Pita Pit on Southwest Fifth Avenue near Portland State University. Roberts also pleaded guilty to second-degree criminal mischief for destroying her iPhone, and likely will be ordered to pay hundreds of dollars in restitution for the damage at a later hearing.

Roberts received a much longer sentence than a 50-year-old man who last month received 15 days in jail for yelling homophobic and racist slurs at two gay men, one an African American, and throwing one of them into a brick wall.

The prosecutor said Roberts’ sentence reflects the victim’s wishes for a significant penalty. But Roberts will serve the jail time in this case at the same time that he’ll serve a 2 ¾-year federal prison sentence for robbing a Southwest Portland Wells Fargo bank in February while awaiting trial in the Pita Pit case. That means the Pita Pit case won’t add extra time.

On Oct. 1, 2018, Roberts was working the dinner shift when he unleashed on the only customer in the store, Carolyn Anderson, who was eating her meal. Audio and video showed a disturbing scene, said Deputy District Attorney Nicole Hermann, who prosecuted the case.

“It is incredibly alarming to listen to the manner in which he spoke to her — the screaming, the vitriol, the negative and racial language that he used towards her,” Hermann said. “Frankly, how Ms. Anderson was able to maintain her calm is quite impressive.”

As Roberts spoke, Anderson stood up and told him she didn’t like his language and asked him to stop, according to the prosecutor’s office. That’s when Roberts picked up the chair and raised it into the air, leading Anderson to fear for her life, the proseutor’s office said.

A passerby called 911.

Anderson sat in the courtroom during the sentencing hearing, but asked that the prosecutor relay her sentiments. Hermann said the encounter has left Anderson in fear of “any interaction turning into something so violent and racially charged against her.” Anderson hopes Roberts focuses on fixing the problems that led him to act in such a frightening way, the prosecutor said.

Defense attorney Grant Cole said Roberts was suffering from a “serious and acute mental health crisis” at the time he committed both crimes. Cole said Roberts has done well in the past in a mental health court program, which requires regular check-ins with a judge, and once Roberts is released from prison he might be allowed back into the program.

From 2008 to 2017, Roberts had previously been convicted of crimes that included first-degree arson, third-degree sodomy and first-degree theft.

At the time of his arrest in October 2018, Roberts told jail employees he has bipolar disorder. He also said he has a gambling problem and a pornography problem, according to jail records.

At the hearing, Roberts apologized to Anderson.

“I wasn’t in my proper state of mind. I knew I was going through problems and I was seeking help at the time, but I didn’t do enough for myself,” he said.

He also apologized to the community. Roberts said he wants to embrace help “to not make the same mistakes when I get out.”

-- Aimee Green

agreen@oregonian.com

o_aimee

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