Taunting neighbors results in jail sentence, fine

A Lake St. Croix Beach man who was charged with taunting and terrorizing a neighboring couple and their children with racist insults over several months has been has been sentenced for a bias crime.

Paul L. Caliguire, 47, was sentenced in Washington County District Court last week to 60 days in jail and fined $3,000 after pleading guilty to aggravated harassment committed because of bias, following a series of incidents from November 2009 through last April.

Caliguire originally was charged with two felony counts and pleaded not guilty. One count was dismissed in a plea agreement, and he pleaded guilty to a gross misdemeanor.

According to the complaint, a Washington County deputy was called April 22 by a woman who was "upset, crying and almost to the point of hysteria."

She told the deputy she had been out for a walk with her dog and her two daughters, then ages 5 years and 9 months old, when she saw Caliguire. He was in his yard, sitting on a log and cradling a black baby doll in his arms. As the woman and her children drew near, the complaint says, he began whistling loudly at her. The woman said she was so frightened, she gathered the dog and children and ran to a friend's house.

The woman, who is white, is married to a black man.

Another neighbor told investigating deputies she had seen Caliguire with the doll in his front yard, where he had hung the doll by a rope from the tailgate of his pickup truck and was striking it repeatedly with a baseball bat, yelling a racial epithet loudly as he was doing it, the complaint says. Another neighbor said Caliguire had been swinging the doll around with a rope and tossing it toward the street.

Caliguire apparently fled when officers arrived but was taken into custody after emerging from a wooded area and refusing to comply with their orders to lie on the ground.

The doll incident prompted the charges, but Caliguire had been involved in others aimed at the family, the complaint says. The previous November, the family said, he walked past their home and made a gesture like shooting a gun while yelling racial epithets. Later, the couple said, he walked past them as they were in their front yard and made inappropriate remarks. Another time, the couple reported, Caliguire walked by their home with his pants low around his waist while wearing a hat cocked to the side as he walked by, making gestures and yelling.

Another time, the words "white power" were scrawled in their driveway, they said.

The couple told police they were not only offended, "but scared for the safety of their family," the complaint says.

Caliguire's wife, Paula M. Caliguire, 43, also was charged in the incidents. She pleaded guilty last month to harassment stalking. She was sentenced to 45 days in jail and two years of probation, and also fined $3,000.

Besides the fine and jail time, Paul Caliguire was ordered to complete a diversity workshop. Both defendants were ordered to have no contact with the victims.

Jim Anderson • 651-735-0999