Man Gets 8 Years in Prison for Racial Slurs Against Neighbor

Edward Cagney Mathews, 47, will be forced to serve at least four years of an eight year prison sentence handed down Friday after he was caught in a viral video in July 2021 hurling racial abuse at a Black neighbor and spitting on him. It later emerged that he had been terrorizing Black people in Mount Laurel, New Jersey, for years. Mathews was captured on video calling his neighbor a “monkey” and the N-word, while bumping his chest and spitting on him. Authorities then discovered he had frequently used racial slurs against Black neighbors, put feces on their property, sent threatening emails and letters, and shot their cars with BB pellets. The video sparked hundreds of people to converge on his home and call for his arrest. Mathews, who has already been in jail for two and a half years, sobbed in court but apologized for his “insensitive and disrespectful words.” “Every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future,” he said in his statement to the court while shackled and handcuffed. “I want to commit to rebuild the community.”