A lonely, middle-aged white man was arrested for harassing and intimidating a Black councilwoman in Middlesex County, New Jersey.
On Tuesday, 52-year-old Adam Valvo of Old Bridge, New Jersey, was busted on two counts of fourth-degree bias intimidation and one count of harassment, New Jersey Advance Media reported.
With a hatred for Old Bridge Councilwoman Edina Brown, Valvo sent her an email with profanities and racial epithets on March 8.
Brown, the only Black woman councilwoman and one of two Democrats out of the nine council people—all of the others are Republicans—forwarded the email to Mayor Owen Henry and Old Bridge police. The email, with Valvo using the alias “John Smith,” told Brown she needed to get her “n—a a– out of here,” reminding her that Middlesex County is a “Republican township.”
Local detectives joined forces with the members of New Jersey’s Bias Crimes Unit, tasked with investigating crimes motivated by prejudice against others based on race, color, religion, sexual orientation, gender, disability, and/or ethnicity under New Jersey’s Division of Criminal Justice.
The investigation determined Valvo “authored and sent the email,” Middlesex County Prosecutor Yolanda Ciccone and Acting Chief Joseph P. Mandola, Jr. of the township police department said in a statement.
Brown told NJ Advance Media that the email used the n-word and made racist remarks about Black people and those who live in Newark, Trenton, and Paterson.
New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir S. Grewal condemned Valvo’s crime, signaling to anyone who wishes to harass or intimidate others through racist actions that they will be prosecuted.
“We have zero tolerance for acts of bias and hate in the Garden State,” Grewal said. “Hate has no home in New Jersey.”
Old Bridge is a predominantly white town with 73% of the residents being white and 7% Black, according to U.S. Census estimates, NJ Advance Media reported.