A white woman in Iowa was sentenced to prison after she drove into two young children with her SUV, ABC7 reported. Nicole Poole Franklin learned of her 304-month sentence during a recent court hearing on Thursday (Aug. 19), nearly three months after she pleaded guilty to two federal hate crime charges.
According to prosecutors, a 12-year-old Black boy was walking on a sidewalk alongside his older sibling when she drove onto the curb and ran into him. They claim the attack — which barely missed the older child — stemmed from her beliefs that the boy was “just like ISIS” was “not supposed to be there.”
That same day, Poole Franklin hit a 14-year-old Latina girl because she assumed that she was a Mexican who “wasn’t supposed to be in the country” and was taking over “our homes and our jobs.” After both incidents, Poole Franklin took off to a local gas station where she proceeded to hurl racial slurs at an employee and the customers.
Last week, prosecutors requested that Poole Franklin receive a 27-year sentence. “Holding Poole Franklin accountable, not only for her intentional actions, but for the malicious beliefs behind them, is what our justice system should be, and a must to provide just punishment, afford adequate deterrence and protect the public from further crimes by this defendant,” they wrote in a filing.
The woman’s public defender agreed with prosecutors and simply asked that the sentence was no longer than 27 years. Poole Franklin, the attorney explained, was battling “severe pre-existing mental illnesses that were exacerbated by methamphetamine use, numerous extremely difficult life events hitting at nearly the same time, and with some of the worst aspects of the culture acting behind the scenes and further poisoning her mental state.”
Per U.S. District Judge Stephanie Rose, Poole Franklin was sentenced to 25 years and four months in prison. Since she’s already spending up to 25 years in prison on state charges of attempted murder, she will serve both terms simultaneously.