Heavily Armed MA Man Threw Banana Peels At Haitian Neighbors In Harassment Case

LEXINGTON, MA — A 55-year-old Lexington man has been sentenced to prison on weapons charges and violating the civil rights of his neighbors in a racial harassment case that dates back seven years, according to prosecutors.

Robert Ivarson was sentenced last week to up to nine years in state prison on charges including criminal harassment, a criminal civil rights violations and illegal possession of over 70 weapons, Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan said Thursday.

Ivarson was first arrested in December 2016 on a criminal harassment charge after he threw banana peels onto the driveway of his neighbors, who are Haitian. The victims found banana peels on more than 30 occasions, officials said.

A month later, Lexington and state police and the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms searched Ivarson's home, finding thousands of rounds of ammunition, plus Nazi, Ku Klux Klan and confederate items. In October 2017, a second search at Ivarson's home turned up more than a dozen more guns, including assault rifles, according to prosecutors.

He pleaded guilty on Feb. 3 to weapons and civil rights charges.

"Ivarson targeted his neighbors because of their race. His repeated throwing of banana peels into their driveway was terrorizing and caused them to feel unsafe in their own home," Ryan said in a news release. "When someone who commits civil rights violations, at the same time, illegally possesses high capacity firearms, they pose a substantial threat to the safety of the community."