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Prosecutions For Brutal May 2021 Antisemitic Assaults in NYC Moving At Glacial Pace

Prosecutions For Brutal May 2021 Antisemitic Assaults in NYC Moving At Glacial Pace

Court cases proceed slowly; meanwhile, two assailants were charged with new crimes this fall.

On May 20, 2021, several men assaulted Jews at a pro-Israel protest near Times Square. Shouting ‘You dirty Jew, f— Israel, go back to your country,’ the anti-“Zionist” assailants beat 29-year old Joseph Borgen with fists, kicks, and crutches. Borgen was also pepper-sprayed in the eyes, blinding him for several hours. Another assailant threw fireworks, which exploded and burned a 55-year old woman.

At least five people were arrested, four adults (Waseem Awawdeh, Faisal Elezzi, Mahmoud Musa, and Mohammed Othaman) and a minor (K.A.). Awawdeh was reportedly the assailant who beat Borgen with crutches. Othaman was allegedly the one who hurled the fireworks that exploded.

Awawdeh, Elezzi, Musa, and Othaman were all charged, but the cases remain in limbo. A hearing was held December 8. According to Kay from the New York District Attorney’s Office media department, the cases are awaiting trial. The next hearing date is January 26, 2023, and the delay is to complete discovery. Asked whether trial will actually take place on that date, Kay responded frankly, “Likely not that date because of the backlog,” but shortly thereafter.

The minor was reportedly charged as a juvenile in a New York County court. The status of his case is unknown.

Awawdeh was rearrested on a criminal mischief/property damage charge for an incident that happened November 10, 2022, in Brooklyn. Othaman appears to have been rearrested (under the name Mohammad Othman) for reckless endangerment and related charges that arose September 29, 2022, in Staten Island. Despite these apparent release violations, bail was continued at the December 8 hearing(s).

A year after the assault, Borgen filed a federal civil lawsuit charging Awawdeh, Elezzi, Musa, Othaman (spelling the name Othman, as NYPD did in a tweet announcing his arrest), and K.A. with violating his civil rights, assault, battery, and other claims. The case has been stayed, pending resolution of the criminal cases. If they ever are.

[Click on image to see document.]

Now that FBI Director Christopher Wray has observed that the Jewish community is “getting it from all sides,” New York City Mayor Eric Adams somberly noted that antisemitism has become not just normalized, but popular, and Second Gentleman Douglas Emhoff is feeling Jews’ pain – maybe Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg could pick up the pace a little? Or at least seek to revoke bail for Awawdeh and Othaman, given their rearrests?

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Comments

Our justice system is irretrievably broken. People are charged with things, then sit in limbo with their rights curtailed for two years, three years, with nothing happening. The guilty don’t receive appropriate punishment, and the innocent can’t get their lives and livelihoods back. The process is the punishment, but it punishes the innocent accused and even the uninvolved citizen as much as it ever punishes the guilty. I have no more respect for it anymore than I do for our representational structure.

With a Soros funded DA these cases will not bd tried

Subotai Bahadur | December 10, 2022 at 10:14 pm

This is long Democrat controlled New York. Anti-Semitic physical physical assaults on Jews will not be punished there, especially since the defendants are Muslims. It is what it is.

Subotai Bahadur

    What you said is true, but, I’d extend it to apply to the Dhimmi-crat Party, at-large. Brazen and unabashed Jew-hate — rationalized by utterly vile, dishonest and slanderous vilification of Israel and Israeli Jews, and, the correlated legitimization of/deference towardss Arab Muslims’, so-called “Palestinians’ ” contrived and fallacious propaganda mythologies of alleged victimhood — now constitutes a core part of the Dhimmi-crat ethos.

      mailman in reply to guyjones. | December 11, 2022 at 5:04 am

      Yet Jews continue to vote Democrat year in year out.

      Like blacks, Jews need to get themselves off the Democrat Kibbutz.

Maybe next time they’ll say they’re associated of Kanye West and then the prosecution will move much faster in prosecuting actual violent antisemites.

But fuck me Democrats sure do seem to move quick when it’s a special interest group supposedly being attacked by wrong pronouns and other mean words!

It’s time to leave, Johanna.

The legal system is too slow.

We’ve got to speed up the system. Yes, some cases are complicated and need to take a lot of time but the majority of cases could probably be dealt with in less than three months.

It really shouldn’t take almost a year or more to prosecute simple cases. Simple like a guy robs a gas station with a gun. Gets caught. It’s clear that the guy robbed the place. Why are we waiting almost a year (or more in some cases I’ve personally seen) to go to trial?

It’s not fair to the victim(s), society, and even the accused.

True bail reform isn’t cashless bail. It’s speeding up the system so that criminal accusations are dealt with instead of dragging through the system.

How did they manage additional crimes from no-bail pre-trial detention in solitary?

Asking for some not yet adjudicated maybe-insurrectionists in DC jails. These folks might want to do more of the same while they’re waiting, too.