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A man was sentenced on Wednesday to six months and a week behind bars for ramming his car into the Chabad Lubavitch World Headquarters in January, damaging some of the a side-entrance door.
Dan Sohail, 36, of New Jersey, was sentenced in Brooklyn federal court, where he was also ordered to pay $20,000 in restitution. The sentence will allow Sohail, who has already spent six months in custody, to be released in about a week.
Sohail was charged with intentionally damaging religious property, and he pleaded guilty in May.
Prosecutors recommended a 14-month sentence, which would have kept Sohail behind bars for roughly another eight months, but the judge declined the request. Prosecutors sought the longer sentence as a deterrent to future attacks on Jewish institutions amid a rise in antisemitic hate crimes.
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On Jan. 28, Sohail repeatedly rammed his vehicle into the Chabad Lubavitch World Headquarters. He moved protective barriers, gestured for congregants to get out of the way and drove his car into the building’s side entrance five times, knocking the door off its hinges and destroying his car’s front bumper.
While the doors were damaged, no injuries were reported.
Judge Eric N. Vitaliano said he was “somewhat saddened” that the Justice Department wanted him to be influenced at sentencing by the public’s mistaken initial impression that the attack was a hate crime.
Prosecutors said ahead of sentencing that 80 of 146 hate crime incidents across New York City since the start of the year were based on crimes targeting Jewish people and institutions.
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But Vitaliano said the government’s push for a stricter sentence as a deterrent to future attacks was in part based on the incident initially being labeled as an “I-hate-the-Jews crime, or, worse, an act-of-terrorism crime.”
The judge cited a psychiatric report and said Sohail’s mental health challenges “played an important role” in his sentencing.
“This is a sad tale,” Vitaliano said.
Sohail’s lawyer, Mia Eisner-Grynberg, said he had been trying to win acceptance at the Jewish institution as he struggled with psychological issues.
Eisner-Grynberg told the judge in court papers before sentencing that Sohail was battling depression and post-traumatic stress disorder after a traumatic childhood when he carried out the attack, even as he “desperately sought belonging and understanding through his exploration of Judaism.”
She said Sohail attended the Chabad he later attacked, finding rabbinical students there “warm and welcoming.”
Sohail “danced with them” and followed their recommendation to visit Israel, but he became erratic and extremely anxious after returning to the U.S., “begging” members of Chabad to help him, Eisner-Grynberg said.
Ramming the car into the building was “an irrational cry for help,” she said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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