CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (AP/WMOT) — A Tennessee man is facing still more charges in connection with a plot to attack a Muslim community in New York, and an Islamic advocacy group is asking why he isn’t in jail.
Sixty-four-year-old Robert Doggart pleaded not guilty in July to one charge of solicitation to commit a civil rights violation.
The Chattanooga Times Free Press reports that a grand jury also indicted Doggart on one count of solicitation to commit arson of a building and two counts of threat in interstate commerce charges.
Authorities believe Doggart spent months plotting an assault on a Muslim community outside Hancock, New York. He was first charged in April 2015 but has been allowed to remain at home under house arrest.
Ibrahim Hooper with the Council on American Islamic Relations told WMOT last July that he sees a double standard.
“When a Muslim is involved in these kinds of things it makes international headlines for weeks and the most severe penalties are imposed and no one is released to house arrest. But when it’s an individual who is somehow not related to Islam or a Muslim it’s handled much, much differently.”
Doggart, who is a church pastor from Signal Mountain, Tennessee, is scheduled to appear in a Chattanooga federal court on June 3.