A New Jersey man admitted in federal court Wednesday that he deliberately crashed his vehicle into a major Jewish religious headquarters in Brooklyn, acknowledging to the judge that his intention was to harm the sacred site.
Dan Sohail, 36, drove his car into an entryway of the crowded Brooklyn synagogue five times in a row this past January, first removing barriers and warning bystanders to get out of his path, according to federal authorities. The attack resulted in approximately $19,000 in property damage that he is required to reimburse.
The Carteret, New Jersey resident settled his case without facing hate crime charges, instead entering a guilty plea to deliberately destroying religious property. While the maximum penalty could reach three years imprisonment, federal guidelines suggest a sentence of up to six months, according to both prosecutors and Sohail’s attorney, Mia Eisner-Grynberg.
Judge Eric N. Vitaliano has not scheduled sentencing yet. Sohail has remained in custody since his arrest and has already spent more than three months incarcerated.
Present in the courtroom during the guilty plea, Chabad Rabbi Yaacov Behrman expressed frustration about the potential for what he viewed as insufficient punishment.
“The message needs to be sent loud and clear that attacking a synagogue will be met with serious consequences,” Behrman, a Chabad spokesperson, told reporters afterward. “That message was not heard in court today.”
Initially, Sohail told law enforcement that he had lost control of his car and accidentally pressed the accelerator with his heavy footwear. However, during Wednesday’s federal court proceeding in Brooklyn, he admitted he traveled from New Jersey “and intentionally damaged the building” because it serves as the Chabad headquarters.
Dressed in a tan jail uniform, the bearded defendant with unkempt hair calmly informed Judge Eric N. Vitaliano that he executed his attack “by driving into the door.”
The facility located at 770 Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn houses both a synagogue and administrative offices, and contained roughly 2,000 people during the incident, Behrman reported. Nobody sustained injuries, and authorities found no weapons in Sohail’s vehicle.
Sohail’s “dangerous conduct was a targeted attack on the religious liberty and peace of worship to which every American is entitled,” the Justice Department’s civil rights division chief, Harmeet Dhillon, said in a statement.
Dhillon added that Sohail’s guilty plea sends a clear message that the Justice Department “will not tolerate acts of hatred and violence against religious institutions.”
Deliberately damaging religious property does not qualify as a hate crime under federal statutes. Sohail had been facing state-level hate crime accusations, but those charges were dismissed earlier as the federal case moved forward.
During a previous court appearance in March, Eisner-Grynberg revealed that Sohail was undergoing conversion to Judaism and had previously visited the Chabad Lubavitch location. Several weeks prior to the attack, authorities said, he had participated in a social event at the Chabad headquarters, where surveillance footage captured him dancing alongside Orthodox men.
Individuals familiar with Sohail, including relatives and Chabad rabbis, have indicated he showed no signs of antisemitic sentiment but struggled with psychological problems. At the March proceeding, prosecutor Eric Silverberg recognized “very significant mental health concerns” regarding Sohail.
The incident happened on the 75th anniversary of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson assuming leadership of the Lubavitch movement and sparked immediate alarm throughout the city. Schneerson passed away in 1994 but continues to be honored worldwide. Law enforcement has maintained an almost continuous presence around the Chabad Lubavitch world headquarters for many years.
The location was central to the Crown Heights riots in 1991, when Black neighborhood residents attacked Jews following a child’s death caused by a vehicle in Schneerson’s convoy. In 2014, a mentally unstable individual entered the synagogue and stabbed a rabbinical student, injuring him, before being fatally shot by police.
