Convicted Sex Offender Sentenced for Homophobic Attack on Naked Cyclists

A registered sex offender in Oregon received a multi-year jail sentence for attacking a group of naked cyclists in a violent hate crime.

Robert Earl Houchins, 40, was sentenced to 36 months in prison by a Multnomah County Circuit Court judge after he pleaded guilty last month to attacking a group of naked bicyclists in Portland with a pipe because he thought they were gay. The attack occurred during Pride Month but was not part of the city’s World Naked Bike Ride event which takes place in August.

Prosecutors had originally charged Houchins with eight felonies, including an Assault II charge that carried a mandatory prison sentence of five years and ten months. In a plea bargain with the Multnomah County District Attorney’s office announced on Tuesday, though, he was instead allowed to plead guilty to a first-degree bias crime and an attempted second-degree assault charge.

The attack occurred on June 3, 2023, when a group of nine naked cyclists encountered Houchins.

“Robert Houchins, a bystander, picked up a three-foot-long metal pipe, approached the cyclists, and directed a homophobic slur at them,” the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office said in a press release. “He then struck two of the cyclists across their backs with the metal pipe as they passed.”

One of the men assaulted is gay.

At the age of 21 in 2005, Houchins pleaded guilty to two felony sexual abuse charges for multiple attacks on two girls aged 12 and 13 as they walked home from school. He was sentenced to six years in prison and was required to register as a sex offender.

At the time, Logan County State’s Attorney Tim Huyett painted a disturbing picture of Houchin for the Lincoln Courier as later reported by Web Sleuths. Huyett claimed that in 1998 Houchin “told his teacher he wanted to be a serial killer when he grew up. And, if he couldn't be that, he wanted to be a Nazi who killed Jews.”

Since that time, Houchins has been convicted of more than 30 felonies and misdemeanors, including arson, theft, failing to register as a sex offender, and sexual abuse according to Oregon Live.

Following sentencing, Houchins was returned to the Oregon Department of Corrections. Neither of the two men attacked by Houchins reported serious injuries.