A Texas woman named Esmeralda Upton was proven guilty of four charges and was sentenced to two years of community supervision probation and 40 days confinement in the Collin County Jail for each of the cases. She has also imposed a fine of 4500 in each case for assaulting Indian-American women in a 2022 viral video and was convicted of a hate crime.
Upton had physically and verbally attacked four Indian-American women in August 2022 in the parking lot of the Sixty Vines Restaurant in Plano.
Four Indian women were verbally abused, physically attacked, and threatened at gunpoint by this disgusting racist woman who has been identified as Esmi Armendarez Upton.
Do your thing, Twitter.
Make her infamous.pic.twitter.com/muYvoiHUYJ— BrooklynDad_Defiant!☮️ (@mmpadellan) August 25, 2022
Upton, 59-year-old woman was convicted of three misdemeanor assault charges and one misdemeanor charge of terroristic threat. Each of the charges includes a state hate crime enhancement, alleging that Upton chose the victims based on her bias and prejudice against their race and national origin.
“As Americans, we should all be able to enjoy our constitutional liberties, free and secure from this type of racially motivated assault,” NBC News quoted Greg Willis, Collin County district attorney, as saying.
The video of the 2022 incident which went viral, showed Upton making racist comments against the four Indian women, attacking them physically, and telling them to “go back to India.”
At one point, when one of the victims described Upton as white, she said she is Mexican American.
“I was born here,” Upton is heard saying in the video.
At an earlier point, Upton tells the women, “We don’t want you here.”
“If things were so great in your country, then stay there,” Upton says in the video, captured by one of the victims.
At one point, Upton seems to walk away but then returns, lunging at the victims and visibly knocking the phone that is recording the video.
When one of the victims attempts to explain that she is a naturalized citizen, Upton responds by saying, “You’re a naturalized citizen. You’re not a born and raised citizen.”
One of the victims, Anamika Chatterjee, read a statement before Upton’s sentencing. “My American-born children look like Indians. Because of your hatred and attack, I am now constantly scared for them,” Chatterjee reportedly said.
“That’s the worst effect of what you did to me—that constant worry and anxiety. It continues to astonish me that a person with a minority background like yourself—which you bragged about during the incident—would behave like this, without a trace of shame,” she added.
