Cornell Student Who Made Violent Antisemitic Threats After October 7th Sentenced to 21 Months
“Before imposing a sentence, the court found that this was a hate crime under the federal Sentencing Guidelines because Dai targeted Jewish students and substantially disrupted the university’s core function of educating its students.”
After the October 7th attacks on Israel, Cornell student Patrick Dai was arrested for making violent threats against Jewish students. We covered the story extensively and Professor Jacobson was even interviewed by the FOX Business Network to discuss the issue.
You can watch his appearance below:
Dai eventually pleaded guilty and was held over for sentencing.
Now he has been sentenced to 21 months in prison and did not get credit for time served.
WHAM News reports:
Cornell student from Pittsford sentenced for posting violent antisemitic threats online
Patrick Dai, the Cornell University student from Pittsford accused of making antisemitic and threatening comments against Jewish students, was sentenced Monday to 21 months in prison.
Judge Brenda Sannes said Dai “substantially disrupted campus activity” and committed a hate crime when he posted threatening statements online. These two factors led to a federal sentencing of 27-33 months. However, when considering Dai’s diagnosis of autism, his mental health struggles and his non-violent history, the judge sentenced him to 21 months, not including the 10 months he has already served.
Prosecutors said Dai began posting a series of threatening posts online aimed at Jewish students at Cornell Oct. 28, specifically mentioning the campus’ Kosher dining hall located next to the Cornell Jewish Center. The series of threats resulted in some students feeling in danger and relocating off campus while classes were canceled Nov. 3.
This video report on the sentencing includes comments from Dai’s attorney:
FOX News offers this comment from U.S. Attorney Carla B. Freedman:
“Today, former Cornell University student Patrick Dai was sentenced to serve 21 months in prison for posting anonymous threats to kill Jewish students,” U.S. Attorney Carla B. Freedman for the Northern District of New York said. “Before imposing a sentence, the court found that this was a hate crime under the federal Sentencing Guidelines because Dai targeted Jewish students and substantially disrupted the university’s core function of educating its students.”
“The defendant’s threats terrorized the Cornell campus community for days and shattered the community’s sense of safety,” she added.
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When he is released, after 21 months, he’ll probably have some very woke swastika tattoos. Do you think Cornell will grant him an honorary degree and admit him to its PhD program in the Hamas Studies Department?
With his credentials, he will become a tenured professor in the program.
the suspect released this statement:
b/c the jooos attack my people on the streets and take away scholarships with their affirmative action I feel justified in my agenda
and these clowns do justify their actions and the msm feeds them these lies
its nazi germany all over again
There’s no such thing as a bad boy.
Seems like a pretty light sentence compared to what the unauthorized tour groups on Jan 6th recieved.
The judge considered this perp’s non-violent history.
However, this is inconsistent with what the perp was actually charged with:
The complaint alleges that Dai posted threatening messages to the Cornell section of an online discussion site, including posts calling for the deaths of Jewish people and a post that said “gonna shoot up 104 west.” According to information provided by Cornell University Police and other public information, 104 West is a Cornell University dining hall that caters predominantly to Kosher diets and is located next to the Cornell Jewish Center, which provides residences for Cornell students. In another post, Dai allegedly threatened to “stab” and “slit the throat” of any Jewish males he sees on campus, to rape and throw off a cliff any Jewish females, and to behead any Jewish babies. In that same post, Dai threatened to “bring an assault rifle to campus and shoot all you pig jews.” The charges and the allegations in the complaint are merely accusations. The defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.
Making a terrorist threats (what he did) is illegal. He was not charged with following through on his terrorist threats he was being charged with making them. If he had actually purchased a gun and tried to bring it to college he would have had incomparably tougher charges and a much longer sentence.
The left does not believe in free speech absolutism, and neither does the right, no country has ever had free speech absolutism (that includes this one, whatever golden age you select there was a massive of restrictions including on terror threats) what we actually believe in is freedom of speech (i.e. you are free to incite hatred, you are not free to make terrorist threats to the people you despise).
As in if this man was saying “I support Hitler’s policies, I wish your parents and grandparents had also died, and that Jews are our misfortune, subhuman and deserve to be dead if male, raped and killed if female”-Legal. Unbelievably horrible but legal.
Threaten to do it giving people a reasonable fear (which that threat does just look at any school shooting)-Illegal.
There are Nazis in this country (i.e. Nick Fuentes, and there are nazi adjacent for example Candace Owens is a Holocaust denier), and they do routinely incite hatred against Jews. They just don’t break the law while doing it.
The moment you break the law you need to be accountable.
How is it inconsistent? He has no history of violence. He then made these threats, for which he will serve a total of 31 months, near the top of the range available. How much longer should someone serve for merely scaring people?
I thought he just didn’t understand the charges and needed an explanation about why it wasn’t freedom of speech and how he could be charged with the threat without actually being violent.
No, he understood the charges, he claimed that this was inconsistent with his having no history of violence. But it’s perfectly consistent. Even if he’d actually carried his threat out it would still be consistent with his having no history of violence; every violent person started out with no history of it.
A long time bc such threats are illegal and severely disrupted the campus.
31 months is a long time. If you think longer than that is warranted for merely scaring people, I shudder to think how long you think would be appropriate for actually hurting someone!
This guy is a dangerous loose canon. We have not seen the last of him.
Why does a
ChinamanChinese man have a bug up his nose about Jews in the first place?That’s always been a big question. Maybe he genuinely believed the “Palestinian” propaganda that the news industry has been deliberately spreading, and decided to do something about it.
I would think with that short of a sentence, he should be serving a long, conditional probation with mandatory psychiatric care required. At a minimum, cases like his usually require five year follow-up. And no, Milhouse, that’s not that long for a proven violent threat case. He is about the average age of onset of schizophrenia in males, and left untreated or unmanaged—it gets extremely difficult to manage from there.