Reported hate crimes may be on the rise in Oregon, but rarely do they end in a courtroom verdict.

An exception comes Wednesday in Corvallis as a trial begins for Andrew Oswalt, an Oregon State University graduate student whose white nationalist views inflamed the college town earlier this year and whose criminal accusations could send him to prison.

In January, Oswalt, then serving as a student government representative, was arrested on suspicion of plastering racist bumper stickers on the cars of social justice activists parked outside an off-campus food co-op in summer 2017.

The incident unfolded as Oswalt's now-documented associations with white nationalists became known and his pattern of covert racist activity materialized.

It will be the first bias crime case in Benton County to be prosecuted in nearly a decade, records show. Should the judge find him guilty, Oswalt would be the eighth person convicted in Oregon of first-degree intimidation in the past five years.

The challenge, legal experts say, is that achieving convictions in such cases is extremely difficult. Although many prosecutors believe bringing hate crime charges in an apparent bias case can send a powerful message to the public, they must grapple with an intent that's not easy to pin down.

"You have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that hate or bias is the driving motivation in the case," said Christine Mascal, a former prosecutor in the Multnomah County District Attorney's Office.

As a result, prosecutors sometimes determine probable cause is insufficient to attempt a bias crime case. In other instances, the bias charges are dismissed or reduced during plea negotiations.

The difficulty in successfully building cases and prosecuting them is often at odds with the well-publicized uptick in hate crimes, both nationally and here in Oregon, as well as increased community concern about them, law enforcement officials and criminal justice experts say.

"It's an uphill battle," said Randall Blazak, chairman of the Oregon Coalition Against Hate Crime and a former Portland State University sociology professor.

A hate crime under Oregon state law occurs when a person or group damages property, threatens someone, or subjects another person to offensive or harmful physical contact "because of the person's perception of the other's race, color, religion, sexual orientation, disability or national origin."

Most reported incidents fall under second-degree intimidation, a misdemeanor. The offense is upgraded to a first-degree felony only if it involves two or more perpetrators.

Since 2014, there have been 227 arrests of people accused of first- or second-degree intimidation statewide, according to an analysis of court cases by the Oregon Criminal Justice Commission.

Only 31 of those cases have ended in a conviction, the analysis shows, seven of them felonies.

One case in Deschutes County in 2014 illustrates a more common path for such incidents. Police say three white men in Bend attacked a Hispanic couple who were pushing a child in a stroller on the street at night.

Michael Shane Stell, Joshua Temple Garrett and Clarence William Wetherald Jr, faced multiple counts of first-degree intimidation along with other criminal charges. But ultimately the suspects each pleaded guilty only to the lesser charges, which included menacing, third-degree assault and possession of methamphetamine, court records show.

Prosecutors seeking a hate crime conviction against Oswalt have remained steadfast in their case against him, however.

The 28-year-old faces three counts of first-degree intimidation, which carries a maximum five-year sentence. Last week he waived his right to a jury trial, opting instead to go before Benton County Circuit Court Judge David Connell.

According to Corvallis police, Oswalt and an accomplice plastered bumper stickers that contained a racist slur for African Americans on two cars at the First Alternative Natural Foods Co-Op in June 2017.

The stickers were placed over other stickers that advocated for immigrants and refugees, said members of the Corvallis chapter of Showing Up For Racial Justice, which had held a meeting at the co-op that day.

An employee also discovered someone had placed anti-Semitic leaflets on the windshields of every car in the staff parking lot at the same time, co-op general manager Cindee Lolik told The Oregonian/OregonLive in January.

Police executed a search warrant at Oswalt's house and recovered bumper stickers and fliers matching those used in the incident, authorities said. Oswalt was identified in surveillance video captured by the food co-op, according to police, who never identified the second suspect.

He was booked on suspicion of criminal mischief, a misdemeanor, only hours after OSU's student newspaper published an interview in which Oswalt self-identified as a member of the "alt-right" and outlined his inflammatory views on women and minorities.

Over the next week, a firestorm erupted on campus as more details about Oswalt's politics and past behavior became public.

First, photos surfaced of him marching with white power groups in Portland, delivering Nazi salutes from a freeway overpass and waving a swastika flag outside the home of Jimmy Marr, a Springfield man who advocates for the extermination of Jews.

Oswalt was subsequently identified as the person who for months has kept a Confederate flag hanging in the window of a residence across the street from the university's black cultural center.

Later, University of Oregon police revealed they had arrested Oswalt in July 2017 while he was on campus with three reputed white nationalists, including Marr. The men had fliers with Ku Klux Klan propaganda and others with slogans including, "Diversity means fewer white people," police reports show.

On Jan. 30, eight days after Oswalt was jailed in the Corvallis incident, the Benton County District Attorney's office upgraded its charges against him to first-degree intimidation, and he was arrested again.

"This is a hate crime inspired by ignorance, fueled by racism and aimed at people of color," Ryan Joslin, the prosecuting attorney for Benton County, told The Oregonian/OregonLive at the time. "It was his intent to terrorize both individuals and a group of people."

Two weeks later, OSU students voted to recall Oswalt from his post on student government. He remains a Ph.D. candidate in chemistry, university spokesman Steve Clark said Tuesday.

His trial is scheduled for three days.

-- Shane Dixon Kavanaugh

skavanaugh@oregonian.com

503-294-7632 || @shanedkavanaugh