The U.S. Navy veteran who toppled a satanic display in the Iowa state Capitol in December filed a motion last Friday to dismiss the felony hate crime charge against him.
Michael Cassidy’s defense attorney Sarah Pasquale also argued in court filings that the charge is inapplicable to his situation because The Satanic Temple is not a real religion, according to the Des Moines Register.
Cassidy, a former Republican candidate for the Mississippi House of Representatives, made headlines on Dec. 14 when he traveled to Des Moines and pushed over a statue of Baphomet that the Iowa chapter of The Satanic Temple had erected near a Nativity scene in the Iowa state Capitol.