Judge slams DOJ request for hefty sentence in Brooklyn synagogue crash

“A property crime is what was charged here. Not a hate crime,” U.S. District Judge Eric Vitaliano said after prosecutors asked him to sentence Dan Sohail to prison for more than double the guidelines range.BROOKLYN (CN) — After he admitted to crashing his car into the Chabad Lubavitch World Headquarters in Brooklyn in late January, a New Jersey man on Wednesday received a sentence of time served — plus seven days to arrange for mental health care upon his release.Dan Sohail, 36, appeared in security footage repeatedly driving his 2012 Honda Accord into the Chabad building in Crown Heights. The video shows him driving up to the synagogue just before 9 p.m. on Jan. 28 and moving barricades and ushering congregants away from the entrance, before getting back into his car and driving into the building’s exterior wooden door — then backing up and ramming the door again, four more times. Then Sohail, wearing shorts and boots with a mid-weight jacket, exits the car and is arrested by NYPD officers.The crash knocked the door off its hinges and destroyed Sohail’s car bumper. No one was injured. Sohail will have to pay the Chabad Headquarters restitution of more than $19,000 for the property damage and attend mandatory mental health treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder and a personality disorder.Sohail, whom all parties acknowledge has significant mental health issues that drove his actions — rather than any hatred or animus toward Jewish people or institutions — has been in custody for exactly six months, the high end of the guidelines range. Yet prosecutors asked for a 14-month sentence as a deterrent against antisemitic crimes.U.S. District Judge Eric Vitaliano acknowledged that antisemitic crimes are a “stain on the soul of this city.”“We’re living in a terrible time of crime against Jewish people, Jewish institutions, motivated by hate or animus. That’s what converts the property crime into something more,” the George W. Bush-appointed judge said.But Vitaliano said he was “somewhat saddened — perhaps even more than somewhat” by the government’s request in this case. “It asks the court to sentence based on the general misunderstanding of the public,” he said. “A property crime is what was charged here. Not a hate crime.”In federal court, Sohail was charged with damaging religious property. Previous state hate crime charges against him were dropped. Sohail, the son of a Catholic mother and Muslim father, says he’d taken an interest in Judaism and was in the process of converting to the faith before his arrest.“It is impossible to square what he did with what he believes,” Sohail’s attorney Mia Eisner-Grynberg of the Federal Defenders of New York said Wednesday. “We don’t sentence people based on initial gut reactions and first impressions.”In Sohail’s sentencing memo, Eisner-Grynberg called the incident a cry for help.“In January of this year, gripped by mental illness, Mr. Sohail irrationally drove his vehicle into the Chabad Headquarters — home of an entity that had welcomed and embraced him, and in which he had sought acceptance. Rather than an act of hate, as it reasonably appeared at first blush, Mr. Sohail saw his actions as a desperate call for help,” she wrote.Assistant U.S. Attorney Eric Silverberg pointed to the significance of attacking a Jewish institution, which on the evening of Jan. 28 was hosting an event marking the anniversary of the death of the Chabad movement’s leader, attended by dozens of congregants, according to court papers.“The guidelines simply do not capture the dangerous nature of this conduct,” Silverberg said.That Sohail’s behavior was “inexplicable” and he struggles with mental illness were factors behind the government’s request for a sentence more than twice as long as the federal guidelines, Silverberg said. “It is both a mitigating factor and it gives the government serious concern about whether he will commit crimes in the future.”Prosecutors also noted Sohail refused to come to court for his bail hearing in March following a physical altercation with another inmate in the courthouse holding cell. Sohail was already in custody on state charges at the time. He pleaded guilty to a criminal complaint in May.“I’m not impressed by fights in cellblocks or defendants who choose not to make an appearance,” Vitaliano said. Here, it wasn’t “some sort of moral turpitude causing the conduct, but an illness that needs treating.”He added: “If there’s a need for specific deterrence, that’s where it rests."Deterrence and the need to “awaken this city to remove the stain of antisemitism" are both “two important goals,” Vitaliano said. “But there’s no basis in my view to keep Mr. Sohail behind bars to achieve the other goal of working as best we can as a community … to protect Jewish people and Jewish institutions.”Vitaliano ended the hearing with words of encouragement for Sohail.“Mr. Sohail, you need help. A hand of help has been extended to you. Please grasp it and know that the help you need is available. We pray it will be successful for you,” Vitaliano said.Eisner-Grynberg declined to comment following the hearing, but she signaled during the proceeding that her client, who plans to move in with his mother in New Jersey, intends to follow the judge’s orders: “He is very eager to put his life together, get back to work and begin the very difficult journey of mental health treatment that awaits him.”Subscribe to our free newslettersOur weekly newsletter Closing Arguments offers the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world, while the monthly Under the Lights dishes the legal dirt from Hollywood, sports, Big Tech and the arts.Additional Reads