Prosecutor under fire over Tesla vandal case declares it’s time to focus on ‘racial disparities’ in sentencing

A liberal Minnesota prosecutor receiving backlash for letting a Tesla vandal off easy is now pushing to reduce “racial disparities” in sentencing.

Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty’s office will consider a defendant’s “racial identity” when weighing potential plea deals starting Monday, KARE 11 reported. Moriarty drew criticism days earlier after declining to prosecute an employee in Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s administration who keyed six Tesla vehicles and caused more than $21,000 in damage.

“While racial identity and age are not appropriate grounds for departures [from the Minnesota Sentencing Guidelines], proposed resolutions should consider the person charged as a whole person, including their racial identity and age,” a memo from Moriarty’s office reportedly reads. “While these factors should not be controlling, they should be part of the overall analysis.”

Moriarty’s office told KARE 11 that the sentencing memo “acknowledges that there are many factors to be considered in negotiations” because “each case – and defendant – is unique.”

“A defendant’s race matters because we know unaddressed unconscious biases lead to racial disparities, which is an unacceptable outcome,” a spokesperson told the outlet.

The policy adds to the staunchly left-wing record of Moriarty, who gave Minnesota Department of Human Services employee Dylan Bryan Adams “pre-charge diversion” instead of felony charges for vandalizing six Teslas. Moriarty said Wednesday that Adams will pay victims restitution but her office will not prosecute him because felony convictions can lead to “recidivism” by harshly affecting someone’s life.

Moriarty also said the suspect “did not have a record” and that “this is how we handle first time, low-level property cases” — though her current policies normally allow diversion only for less costly property crimes than Adams’.

Moriarty’s office did not respond to an inquiry from the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The conservative Minnesota-based think tank Center for the American Experiment said Moriarty’s priorities as a prosecutor are off.

“What problem is Moriarty trying to address?” the center said in an X post Friday. The group pointed to a research it released in November on the state’s justice system that found, “while disproportions between the races exist, those disproportions do not equate to unwarranted ‘disparities’ created by an unjust system.”

The report said “social justice efforts that seek to reduce consequences for black offenders” are “misguided” and “burden the law-abiding black community with disparately high crime rates.”

“We will send a copy over to her office right away,” the center said in its X post.

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