A Colorado Springs man was sentenced Wednesday to nearly four years in prison for staging a hate crime intended to stoke support for a Black mayoral candidate.
A federal judge sentenced 36-year-old Derrick Bernard to 46 months in prison; three years of supervised release, and a $200 special assessment after a jury found him guilty last year of conspiracy and malicious intimidation by means of fire for his role in a scheme that roiled the 2023 Colorado Springs mayoral election.
“This isn’t a case about threats against one person; it was a case about threats against an entire community,” said U.S. District Judge Regina Rodriguez during the sentencing hearing, as reported by Courthouse News. “Threats against public officials are very serious matters and have been on the rise.”
Prosecutors said Bernard sought to boost the chances of candidate Yemi Mobolade by burning a cross in front of one of his campaign signs defaced with a racial slur, then sought to publicize the incident via email with co-defendant Ashley Blackcloud.
The cross-burning took place April 23, 2023, about three weeks before the May 16 mayoral runoff between Mr. Mobolade, a Nigerian-American businessman, and former Colorado Secretary of State Wayne Williams, who is White.
“After the burning occurred, Bernard and Blackcloud then worked together to send an email to the candidate, media outlets, and other local, state, and national organizations,” said the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Colorado in a Wednesday statement.
“Attached to the email was a short video of the cross burning and a still photograph,” the office said. “The email falsely blamed the candidate’s political opponent for the crime.”
Ten days before cross-burning, Bernard sent a message to Mr. Mobolade saying that he was “mobilizing my squad in defense. Black ops style big brother,” then texted Blackcloud, saying, “I got a plan.”
Mr. Mobolade won the runoff with 58% of the vote, becoming the city’s first Black mayor. He had exchanged texts with Bernard and spoken with him at least once on the phone, but said he knew him only as a local media figure.
Bernard and Blackcloud, described by prosectors as “self-declared activists and social media personalities,” said that Mr. Mobolade was aware of the plot, while the mayor insists he knew nothing about it and that his family was terrorized by the cross-burning.
“This was not just politics for me; this was personal, Mr. Bernard,” Mr. Mobolade said during sentencing. “What you and others have done has caused real harm, not just to me, but to members of my campaign.”
Man gets 4 years for cross-burning political hoax @Bright_lamp https://t.co/C3recQwu30
— Courthouse News (@CourthouseNews) April 1, 2026
Judge Rodriguez applied the hate-crime enhancement to Bernard’s sentence, saying that the incident would not have occurred but for Mr. Mobolade’s race, although defense attorney Tyrone Glover argued that the incident was intended to benefit the candidate, not hurt him.
“I’m taking issue with this idea that factually these defendants singled out a particular defendant because of his race in the same way the Ku Klux Klan would drag a Black preacher out of his home,” Mr. Glover said. “They were not trying to harm the victim; they were trying to get him elected.”
Bernard, who was sentenced to life in prison in 2024 for the murder of local rapper William Underwood, continued to insist that the mayor was aware of the scheme. He has appealed the murder conviction.
“The true victims are the taxpayers, the community, Wayne Williams,” Bernard said at Wednesday’s hearing. “The sole beneficiary of this was Mr. Mobolade. He was nobody before, and he’s somebody now.”
Blackcloud was also found guilty by a jury and sentenced in January to one year and one day in prison, a verdict that she has appealed. A third defendant, Deanna West, pleaded guilty last year to participating in the hoax and was sentenced to three months’ probation.
