Nicole Poole Franklin pleads guilty to hate crimes for running down children over their skin color- a black boy who she believed to be part of ISIS and a Latin girl who she believed to be Mexican.
An Iowa woman who admitted to intentionally running over a black child and a Latina child with her car has pleaded guilty to hate crime charges.
Nicole Marie Poole Franklin, 43, entered the pleas Wednesday in a Des Moines federal court in the two separate attacks on Dec. 9, 2019, the Des Moines Register reported.
Prosecutors allege Franklin intentionally ran over a black 12-year-old boy, injuring one of his legs, as he walked on a sidewalk around 3:45 p.m with her black Jeep Grand Cherokee.
She later claimed that she thought the boy was of Middle Eastern descent and was in the Islamic State terrorist group.
But there’s more.
Iowa woman who drove into kids of color gets 25 years for hate crime
Mental competency
About 20 minutes later, Franklin while still driving, jumped a curb and hit a 14-year-old Latina girl on a sidewalk, prosecutors said. The girl was left with injuries that required her to be hospitalized for two days.
Franklin told authorities that she struck the girl because ‘she is Mexican.’
Around an hour after the hit-and-run, she was arrested at a local gas station, where cops said she had hurled items at a clerk and customers as she yelled racial slurs.
She has said she suffers from schizophrenia and post-traumatic stress disorder.
Last year, a judge ruled that Franklin wasn’t mentally competent to stand trial, but she was later restored to mental competency and ordered to face trial.
The federal charges for violating the US Hate Crime Act carry sentences of up to life in prison.
Franklin also pleaded guilty earlier in the week to two state charges of attempted murder — which could each net her up to 25 years in prison.
US prosecutors have recommended she be sentenced to 27 years behind bars and that her federal sentence be served at the same time as her state sentence.
