{"id":314400,"date":"2026-05-13T22:54:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T22:54:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/314400\/"},"modified":"2026-05-13T22:54:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T22:54:10","slug":"santana-row-assault-defendants-arraigned-will-not-face-hate-crime-charges-the-mercury-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/314400\/","title":{"rendered":"Santana Row assault defendants arraigned, will not face hate crime charges \u2013 The Mercury News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Three men accused of attacking two Israeli-American men outside a Santana Row restaurant in March<\/a> were arraigned on assault charges Wednesday afternoon but will not face hate crime charges for the encounter that garnered national headlines.<\/p>\n

\"FrameFrame from video of two men attacking another man at a Santana Row restaurant on the afternoon of March 8, 2026. Three men were later charged with assault in the encounter, which prompted calls for hate crime allegations that authorities said were not adequately supported by evidence. (Frame from video courtesy of Melissa Escudero)\u00a0<\/p>\n

The March 8 attack sent shockwaves through the local Jewish community and prompted calls for hate crime charges in the days after it occurred, as second-hand accounts and rumors claimed the attackers used antisemitic language and targeted the reported victims because they were speaking Hebrew. A portion of the attack was caught on video shared on social media<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But the case will be handled strictly as an alleged assault after prosecutors and investigators concluded that they did not have the evidence of intent needed to add hate crime allegations.<\/p>\n

\u201cBased on the information we have uncovered, we do not have evidence to support filing a hate crime allegation,\u201d Deputy District Attorney O\u2019Bryan Kenney said Wednesday. \u201cThe investigation has corroborated that this is an unjustified felony assault.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added, \u201cAn important part of our case will be exploring what motive, if any, that they had for committing this brazen assault, and do whatever we can to ensure they\u2019re held accountable and properly address any ongoing threat to the public.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to authorities, the two victims had been standing on the patio area outside Augustine, a restaurant on the 300 block of Santana Row, speaking in Hebrew, in broad daylight when the three men approached them and an altercation broke out. A video showed the three suspects punching the two victims and holding their feet before turning and fleeing down the street.<\/p>\n

Bruneil Henry Chamaki, 32, of Morgan Hill, and San Jose residents Roma Akoyans, 20, and Ramon Akoyans, 18, were each charged with one count of felony assault for the alleged attack<\/a>. Chamaki was additionally charged with a misdemeanor count of battery.<\/p>\n

The three men made their first court appearance Wednesday at the Hall of Justice in San Jose; they did not enter pleas.<\/p>\n

Sam Polverino, Chumaki\u2019s attorney and who also represented Roma Akoyans just for the arraignment, said after the hearing that he thought the decision not to file hate crime charges in this case was \u201cappropriate.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot has been made of the last four seconds of a video, without seeing the entire video, or knowing all the facts in the case. And I think a lot of folks have jumped to conclusions,\u201d Polverino said. \u201cI think we\u2019re looking for the right conclusion \u2026 There will be a lot more in this case than what\u2019s been publicized.\u201d<\/p>\n

Daniel Klein, CEO of Jewish Silicon Valley, said that the advancement of the criminal case is a \u201cvery positive sign.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe deputy district attorney said it right, which I think the community would agree with, which is the investigation based on the video we saw and speaking to the members in our community that were impacted \u2026 has corroborated that this is an unjustified felony assault,\u201d Klein said.<\/p>\n

\u201cPart of this is the Jewish community wanting \u2026 not special treatment, just equal treatment,\u201d Klein added. \u201cSeeing criminal charges continue to progress and this case being taken seriously, I think that is something that, in the conversations I\u2019ve had with the community, makes the community feel better.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dmitry Stadlin, representing Ramon Akoyans, declined comment to reporters after the court hearing. The next court date for all three defendants is July 23.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Three men accused of attacking two Israeli-American men outside a Santana Row restaurant in March were arraigned on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":213995,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[3623,1794,2602,3622,7359,36698,37488,88,90,89,69555],"class_list":["post-314400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-jose","tag-arraignment","tag-attack","tag-charges","tag-court","tag-district-attorney","tag-hate-crime","tag-jewish","tag-san-jose","tag-san-jose-headlines","tag-san-jose-news","tag-santana-row"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314400","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=314400"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314400\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/213995"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=314400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=314400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=314400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}