SAN DIEGO (KGTV) — The brother of Ashli Babbitt the San Diego woman fatally shot during the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, has been convicted after he assaulted and hurled racial slurs at an SDG&E worker in Point Loma Heights.
San Diego City Attorney Mara W. Elliott announced Wednesday, 33-year-old Roger Stefan Witthoeft Jr. was convicted of all charges including a hate crime, for allegedly slapping a Latino worker last yearand telling him to "talk in English you (expletive) immigrant" and "go back to your country."
“This jury has sent a clear message that violent, abusive, and racist conduct like this has no place in our community,” San Diego City Attorney Mara W. Elliott said. “My Office will continue to prosecute and hold accountable people who commit hate crimes, and I urge victims and witnesses to report all such activity.”
Prosecutors say, in Sept. 2021 the worker was diverting traffic at a Point Loma intersection where SDG&E workers were repairing a utility box, causing Witthoeft to become "enraged" because the worker's truck was stopped in the intersection.
About four months later, Witthoeft got into an altercation with another man on Muir Avenue in Ocean Beach, according to the City Attorney's Office. Witthoeft was an Ocean Beach resident. He's facing charges of battery and vandalism in connection with the man in Ocean Beach.
The City Attorney's Office also says, Witthoeft was previously convicted of vandalism for a 2016 confrontation with a 71-year-old Latino man in Lakeside. The victim asked Witthoeft to move his pickup truck. Witthoeft came up to the victim’s truck, screaming, kicked the man’s door, and kicked a window out of his camper shell.
In the Point Loma Heights case, Witthoeft faces a potential sentence of up to a year in jail, one year of probation, and a $1,000 fine. He is scheduled to be sentenced Dec. 13.
