Hate crime victim’s family upset about Las Vegas attacker’s 90-day sentence

Phillip Quindara had two statements ready in his pocket Monday, the day the man who committed a hate crime attack on his father was sentenced.

One statement spoke positively of the sentence, he said. The other was negative.

The positive statement was the one Phillip Quindara read to reporters after 46-year-old Christian Lentz was ordered to serve 90 days in jail and spend five years on probation, plus complete a mental health court program. Lentz could also face a 12- to 30-year prison sentence if he fails to obey conditions.

But on Tuesday, Phillip Quindara said he made a mistake in a moment of confusion and that he actually feels District Judge Jennifer Schwartz’s sentence was “devastating” and an injustice.

The family hoped the sentencing would provide closure, but now, “the disappointment is just immense,” he said, and it worsened when the family talked to relatives, friends and supporters who felt Lentz “is getting away with it.”

Henry Quindara, another son of the victim, said, “It says to me personally that justice is not for people that look like my dad or look like myself or look like anyone that’s not white.”

Amadeo Quindara, the victim, is also unhappy.

“I was shocked to hear that she’s only giving 90 days time in jail and also five years probation,” he said.

Quindara, Lentz’s Filipino American neighbor, was relaxing in his garage on May 30, 2023. Lentz approached and “told him that he should be on a ventilator,” then returned, attacked him and said, “Die, die, die,” Chief Deputy District Attorney Colleen Baharav previously said. At the time, Quindara was 75.

A court spokesperson said Schwartz would not comment, but the judge spoke out against hatred and violence directed at Asian people in her remarks at the sentencing hearing.

She also noted that the defendant has been out of custody for two years, undergone therapy and stayed out of trouble.

Lentz pleaded guilty but mentally ill on April 21 to residential burglary motivated by bias or hatred toward the victim and abuse of an older person with death or substantial harm motivated by bias or hatred.

Mandy McKellar, Lentz’s attorney, has said her client was “acutely psychotic” when he committed the assault and cannot remember it.

She said in a Tuesday email that the case was about mental illness, not race.

“Framing it as a racial issue distorts the facts and undermines both true hate crime victims and those suffering from serious mental illness,” the attorney wrote.

Phillip Quindara said the judge seemed to be trying to give Lentz a chance, but he also thinks the fact Lentz is white may have helped him to receive a lighter sentence.

The victim’s wife found him on the floor covered in blood, according to Baharav. Quindara suffered a head laceration, a black eye, and memory loss, she said, and still feels pain.

Lentz told Quindara and his wife to speak English after hearing the couple speaking with Filipino neighbors in Tagalog the day before the attack, Quindara previously said in an interview.

Amadeo Quindara said Tuesday that he has considered moving, “maybe somewhere safer than Las Vegas.”

Contact Noble Brigham at nbrigham@reviewjournal.com. Follow @BrighamNoble on X.