Former Ole Miss student gets six months for hanging noose around James Meredith statue

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Graeme Phillip Harris Former Ole Miss student Graeme Phillip Harris, right, with his attorney David Hill, enter federal court, where Harris pleaded guilty to a charge of using a threat of force to intimidate African-American students and employees at the university, in Oxford, Miss. on Thursday, June 18, 2015. Harris was sentenced Thursday, Sept. 17, 2015, to six months in prison followed by 12 months post-release supervision. (Bruce Newman/Oxford Eagle via AP)
Graeme Phillip Harris Former Ole Miss student Graeme Phillip Harris, right, with his attorney David Hill, enter federal court, where Harris pleaded guilty to a charge of using a threat of force to intimidate African-American students and employees at the university, in Oxford, Miss. on Thursday, June 18, 2015. Harris was sentenced Thursday, Sept. 17, 2015, to six months in prison followed by 12 months post-release supervision. (Bruce Newman/Oxford Eagle via AP)
Graeme Phillip Harris Former Ole Miss student Graeme Phillip Harris, right, with his attorney David Hill, enter federal court, where Harris pleaded guilty to a charge of using a threat of force to intimidate African-American students and employees at the university, in Oxford, Miss. on Thursday, June 18, 2015. Harris was sentenced Thursday, Sept. 17, 2015, to six months in prison followed by 12 months post-release supervision. (Bruce Newman/Oxford Eagle via AP)

JACKSON, Mississippi (AP) — A former University of Mississippi student who admitted helping place a noose on a statue of a civil rights activist is going to prison.

WTVA-TV reports a federal judge Thursday in Oxford sentenced Graeme Phillip Harris to six months in prison beginning Jan. 4, and 12 months’ supervised release. Harris’ lawyer argued he didn’t deserve jail time.

Harris pleaded guilty in June to a misdemeanor charge of using a threat of force to intimidate African-American students and employees. Prosecutors say he and two other former students placed a noose on the statue of James Meredith, a black man who integrated Ole Miss amid rioting in 1962.

A second man, Austin Reed Edenfield, had been scheduled to plead guilty Wednesday. That hearing was postponed. The third former student has not been charged.

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