Jury finds Guerneville man guilty of hate crime for bomb threat

A Guerneville man who was convicted last year of stealing a gay pride flag in Guerneville was convicted last Wednesday of making a bomb threat against a gay man and the Safeway where he worked, according to the Sonoma County District Attorney’s Office.

Both incidents happened in Guerneville in May. Vincent O’Sullivan, 56, was convicted in July of stealing the flag from the Veterans Memorial flagpole on May 9. O’Sullivan told Sonoma County sheriff’s deputies that flying the flag was a disgrace and offensive to veterans, prosecutors said. On May 12, O’Sullivan used a homophobic slur and foul language to a gay Starbucks barista in the Safeway store. O’Sullivan said he was building pipe bombs to blow up the barista, the Safeway and the Sheriff’s Office’s substation in Guerneville, according to the district attorney’s office. The jury was aware of the theft of the gay pride flag when they convicted O’Sullivan of the bomb threat to the barista and found it constituted a hate crime, prosecutors said.

O’Sullivan was taken into custody after the conviction and will be sentenced April 4 in Sonoma County Superior Court.