Judge rips DOJs disturbing sentence ask for troubled man who drove into NYC temple
A disturbed man who rammed his car into an iconic Brooklyn synagogue will get out of lockup within the week, a federal judge decided Wednesday — as he slammed prosecutors for requesting a harsher sentence based on a “misunderstanding” that the terrifying episode was a hate crime.Brooklyn federal court Judge Eric Vitaliano ripped the US Department of Justice for seeking a 14-month sentence for for mentally ill New Jersey resident Dan Sohail, 36, as a supposed deterrent to others from committing antisemitic crimes.“A property crime is what was charged here.Not a hate crime,” Vitaliano railed during Sohail’s sentencing hearing.
Federal sentencing guidelines for such a charge, a first-offense property crime, land at around six months in prison.The judge, who was appointed by President George W.Bush, said the Brooklyn US Attorney’s Office had caved to a “popular misunderstanding” that Sohail was motivated by antisemitic hate when he crashed his Honda Accord into the Crown Heights temple five times in January.Sohail has already spent six months in jail after being arrested Jan.
28 in the aftermath of the crash at 770 Eastern Parkway, the headquarters of the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic movement.Vitaliano charged that the DOJ failed to live up to its stated mission of acting “without fear or favor” by seeking a punishment that was “disturbing on a deep level,” the New York Daily News reported.“Fear or favor about what? To proceed notwithstanding what the (people’s) will might be, what the popular understanding might be, what the popular misunderstanding might be?” the judge asked.The sentence of time served, plus seven days, means Sohail will likely be released from custody at some point in the next week.The crash, which knocked the temple’s door off its hinges, caused $19,000 in property damage, which Sohail was ordered to pay back as part of his sentence.He will also be required to attend therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder and ...