A person can be guilty of a hate crime even if the violence is directed at a building rather than a person, New York’s top court ruled March 30.
The Court of Appeals unanimously said the stricter penalties imposed for such crimes apply to a man convicted of trying to bomb a Bronx synagogue in 2000. Mazin Assi, 30, is serving five to 15 years in prison.
“It is self-evident that, although the target of the defendant’s criminal conduct was a building, the true victims were the individuals of Jewish faith who were members of the synagogue,” Judge Victoria Graffeo wrote.
Prosecutors said Assi and three others tried to make firebombs out of vodka bottles and threw them through the glass door on the Congregation Adath Israel synagogue on the eve of Yom Kippur. The homemade bombs did not ignite. — ap