Thwarted Synagogue Attackers Head to Court
One of the attackers was released on bail after being indicted when his lawyer argued he didn’t pose a threat because of his Jewish heritage.
Two suspects in a planned attack on a synagogue were in court Tuesday for the first time since their grand jury indictment last month. The defendants — Matthew Mahrer, 22, and Christopher Brown, 21 — were charged with conspiracy and criminal weapon possession last month. They both plead not guilty.
Members of the Jewish community were urged by activists to attend Tuesday’s hearing as pressure mounts on New York’s law enforcement and criminal justice systems to prosecute and sentence antisemitic attackers.
Mr. Mahrer, a resident of the Upper West Side, came to court after his release on bail. His attorney said that Mr. Mahrer was “of Jewish heritage” and that his grandfather was a Holocaust survivor.
Mr. Brown spent the last month and a half in custody. He faces additional charges of terrorism and making terrorist threats as a hate crime. Prosecutors said Mr. Brown had a record of posting threatening messages online.
“Gonna ask a Priest if I should become a husband or shoot up a synagogue and die,” Mr. Brown tweeted before the attack.
A third suspect, Jamil Hakime, is in federal custody on charges related to illegal interstate weapon transport. Mr. Hakime allegedly sold Messrs. Brown and Mahrer a firearm in Pennsylvania that the men planned to use in the attack.
A representative from the district attorney’s office said that Mr. Mahrer’s attorney filed a motion for hearings to suppress the physical evidence. Alleged evidence includes a firearm, 19 rounds of ammunition, a ski mask, and a swastika bracelet.
The district attorney’s office has filed a response, and it expects a decision regarding the evidence on the next court date.
At a rally earlier this month outside a Brooklyn courthouse, community activists demonstrated for harsher sentences during a hearing for a suspect in an unrelated antisemitic attack.
“You can beat up on Jews. There are no consequences,” a former assemblyman, Dov Hikind, said at the rally, noting a record of light sentences for perpetrators of antisemitic crimes. “The people who attack us — they know this.”
According to a recent report by Mr. Hikind’s organization, Americans Against Antisemitism, only one perpetrator of an antisemitic hate crime has been convicted and sentenced to a “significant” prison term since 2018 — despite more than 100 individuals being arrested for such crimes in that period.
