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 Tuesday.
The Court of Appeals unanimously said the stricter penalties imposed for such crimes apply to a Palestinian man convicted of trying to bomb a Bronx synagogue in 2000.
"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. She upheld rulings by the trial court and a mid-level court on a state statute enacted in 2000.
"The evidence in this case proved that defendant committed an attempted arson of the synagogue because of his anger toward a particular religious group," Graffeo wrote.
The attacker, 30-year-old Mazin Assi, is serving five to 15 years in prison.
Jan Hoth, Assi's lawyer, said her client has been denied parole twice,
will probably serve the full term despite having no prior criminal
record and would be free already if simply convicted of attempted
arson. He had grown up in the Palestinian territories and was working
at a deli in New York at the time, she said.
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.
Assi
told police he was angry that a Palestinian child was shot by the IDF
and wanted to make a statement that would stop Middle East violence.