A 61-year-old white man who yelled racist epithets at two African American brothers as he threatened to use a knife on one of the boys was sentenced Thursday to three years in prison.

Multnomah County Circuit Judge Christopher Ramras could have sentenced Michael Tori Amatullo to as few as 10 months in jail under Oregon’s sentencing guidelines. But the judge said Amatullo did real damage to the brothers, ages 7 and 15, when he called them a racist word.

“The thing that gets me about this case is this: I have to imagine that most African Americans can remember the first time that somebody had used the (word) in anger against them,” Ramras said.

The judge noted that Amatullo said he had been a victim of child abuse when he was young.

“You out of anyone should understand the harm that adults could do to children,” Ramras said.

The brothers and Amatullo lived at the same Southeast Portland apartment complex.

According to a probable cause affidavit filed by the prosecution, the encounter unfolded Dec. 18 as the younger brother was taking out the trash and Amatullo began screaming that the youngster was staring at him. When Amatullo directed racist slurs toward him, the older brother intervened and Amatullo also called him slurs and referred to their race in other derogatory ways.

When the teen yelled back, Amatullo said he would beat him up if he continued and threatened both boys with the knife, the affidavit states.

After a trial in July, a jury acquitted Amatullo of unlawful use of a weapon against the 7-year-old, but found him guilty of unlawful use of a weapon against the teen and two counts of menacing against both boys. The judge also found Amatullo guilty of two counts of second-degree intimidation, a hate crime.

On Thursday, the judge said Amatullo’s initial reaction -- starting to swear after seeing the 7-year-old looking at him -- was all wrong.

“The normal reaction, if a 7-year-old is looking at an adult, is to smile at them,” Ramras said. “... It is almost beyond imagination to react to a 7-year-old in that way.”

Earlier in the hearing, the young boy sat before the judge and said he didn’t like the words Amatullo called him.

“I wasn’t looking at him the wrong way,” the boy said. “I was just looking at him.”

He added: “When he said that stuff to me, I was kind of sad because my mom was pregnant. ... He said he hoped my mom would die. I didn’t like that.”

The boy’s mother and older brother sat in the courtroom gallery as he spoke. They didn’t make statements of their own.

Another neighbor, Joselin Jackson, told the judge that Amatullo has a history of racist behavior against others. She said he targeted her because of her race from the day she moved into the complex by calling her a racist slur for African Americans and threatening to have her U-Haul towed.

Jackson said as time passed, he banged on her bedroom windows or used a leaf blower outside at 3 a.m. She said he left a note on her car telling her to park in back “where you belong.”

“I called the police many times," Jackson said. "After a while, they told me to ‘Be the bigger person. Just ignore him. Don’t go by his unit.’ I explained. ‘There’s a garbage (bin) and a mailbox, I have to go by there.’”

Amatullo’s attorney called upon the testimony of a forensic psychologist, Linda Grounds, who said Amatullo was the victim of child abuse, left home at age 17 because of it and was homeless or in prison for 20 years of his adult life. That has made for a traumatic life, Grounds said.

She diagnosed him with major depressive disorder and intermittent explosive disorder, which is characterized by sudden episodes of unjustified anger.

During a psychological evaluation, Amatullo told Grounds that his concerns about the brothers’ family were warranted. He said his troubles with them began after they had thrown dozens bags of dog feces into a tree in the apartment complex’s common area. Amatullo said that after he told the family to stop, they continued, and he deposited one of the bags on their doorstep.

The situation deteriorated from there, he said.

In a letter to the judge, Amatullo said the Dec. 18 encounter escalated after the 15-year-old threatened him and his property and called him racist slurs for white people.

“The incident and my response was not and has absolutely nothing to do with race and hate,” Amatullo wrote. “... The only thing that had to do with race was the slurs being exchanged between both of us.”

Amatullo said he also misjudged the 15-year-old’s age: Amatullo thought he was about 20 years old.

But in the letter, Amatullo apologized for his choice of words.

The judge told Amatullo that he didn’t buy his explanation that he was scared and trying to protect himself that day. The judge said it’s difficult to understand how Amatullo denies being racist.

“It’s just sort of the reality -- that people who are racist don’t admit it to themselves,” the judge said. "...But a person doesn’t use the multitude of phrases that you used without being racist. You don’t refer to people as trash, as gang-banging thugs, as many of the other things that you said.”

-- Aimee Green

agreen@oregonian.com

o_aimee

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