Chicago, IL – A 70-year-old Chicago woman has been sentenced to nearly three years in federal prison for hurling a Molotov cocktail onto her neighbors’ porch in an attack motivated by bias against the victims’ Venezuelan heritage, federal prosecutors announced.
According to court records, on March 16, 2024, Ana M. Hernandez threw a glass bottle containing oil and a washcloth—an improvised incendiary device—onto the back porch of her neighbors’ home. The device ignited a small fire on the wooden structure, though no injuries were reported.
Prosecutors said Hernandez admitted she carried out the attack because she wanted to force the victims to move out of the neighborhood. Later that day, she left a handwritten note on the landlord’s car that read in part, “We do not want you in the neighborhood. Go back to your country. You can go the easy way or the hard way.”
Hernandez pleaded guilty earlier this year to one count of unlawfully interfering with housing rights, a federal hate crime. U.S. District Judge Lindsay C. Jenkins sentenced her Thursday to two years and nine months in federal prison.
The case was prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois as part of the Department of Justice’s broader effort to address hate crimes and bias-motivated violence.
A 70-year-old Chicago woman received a nearly three-year federal sentence for throwing a Molotov cocktail at Venezuelan neighbors in a hate-fueled attack.