Authorities said Monday that two young men admitted leaving racial graffiti at a Chico State University dormitory, but denied being racists themselves.

"They said they only wanted to stir things up," District Attorney Mike Ramsey quoted the pair as telling campus police.

Timothy Simmons, 21, and Deric James Braito, 22, both of Chico, were charged Monday with felony vandalism and a hate-crime enhancement, which could carry six years in prison.

It was learned Monday that Braito is also facing unrelated federal child pornography charges and a misdemeanor count of sending a threatening e-mail message to a Chico weekly newspaper.

Braito was awaiting trial on the latter charges when he and Simmons were arrested Thursday by university police in connection with a series of racial slurs and swastikas scrawled with permanent marking pens on six dormitory doors at Whitney Hall and on a poster promoting "Diversity Week" on campus in the same student residency building.

Ramsey said campus police had no problem finding the alleged culprits, because they left their address on a separate "girls only" invitation to "smoke pot" and have sex at their Nord Avenue apartment.

The invitation, said Ramsey, was written with the same permanent marking pen on a poster in the same residency hall announcing "Top Things to Do in Chico."

Campus authorities put the cost of removing the graffiti at about $500.

During questioning, prosecutors quoted Braito and Simmons as admitting to writing the racial and sexually offensive graffiti, but they insisted they were not racists, said Ramsey.

He said campus police were unable to find any evidence connecting the pair to racial slurs spray-painted on a black student's vandalized vehicle in the Nettleton Stadium parking lot Feb. 28 and on two campus racquetball courts the previous week.

University officials and student leaders have publicly deplored the incidents. The Women's Center on campus will be staging an anti-hate rally in the Free Speech Area from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. today in response to the racist graffiti.

In court Monday, Simmons, the younger of the two suspects, pleaded innocent to the vandalism and hate-crime charges.

Braito's attorney, Mark Stapleton, said he was not prepared to enter a plea until he examines the police reports.

Deputy district attorney Mark Murphy objected to releasing either defendant prior to trial given what he called the "highly insensitive" nature of the graffiti.

Standing in for Simmons' newly court-appointed lawyer at Monday's hearing, Chico attorney Larry Willis countered that while "obnoxious, this was not a violent crime."

Willis joined Braito's lawyer in urging the pair be released on their own recognizance.

The defense attorney asserted that Simmons "is not a threat to public safety," suggesting the only one endangered by such a pre-trial release would be the defendants themselves.

Despite their promise to stay away from the Chico State campus, Superior Court Judge James Reilley ordered both suspects to remain in jail in lieu of bail pending further proceedings in the case.

Stapleton confirmed that he currently represents Braito on unrelated misdemeanor charges arising out of an alleged threatening e-mail sent to the Chico News & Review last May.

According to police reports, the e-mail message complained about the free newspaper's "singles" classified advertising rates.

Charging that it was wrong to "make money out of people's loneliness," the letter writer concluded by threatening: "I will be sending the (newspaper) anthrax within the next three days ... I hope all you (expletives) die."

Ramsey said that after Braito's computer was seized as evidence in the e-mail case, federal authorities filed separate child pornography charges against the Chico man.

Ramsey said he is unaware of the specific allegations in the federal case.