The man accused of ramming his car into the Chabad World Headquarters in Brooklyn now faces federal charges for the bizarre Jan. 28. episode.
Dan Sohail, 36, already faces state hate crime charges after he repeatedly rammed the side entrance of the Chabad World Headquarters on Eastern Parkway in Crown Heights with his Honda, sending a crowd nearby scrambling.
Those state charges are still pending. Now that he’s charged federally, his federal defense attorney called their dismissal “a reasonable expectation” as she argued for bail Monday.
Sohail faces federal charges of intentionally defacing or damaging religious real property, which carries a maximum three years behind bars.
The state hate crime charges carry a steeper penalty, but prosecutors would have to prove his acts were hate crimes — which could be complicated by Sohail’s identification with the Jewish faith. Sohail was not religious growing up, but had recently told his grandmother he wanted to convert to Judaism, his father previously told the News.
At his court appearance Monday, Sohail was dressed in a tan jail jumpsuit and was wearing a religious head covering. His lawyer had hoped to return to Rikers Island to properly observe the Jewish holiday tonight. Monday evening marks the Jewish holiday of Purim, though Sohail was sent to MDC Brooklyn because he’s formally in federal custody.
Video posted online by Kol Haolam News shows the Honda sedan backing up and then driving into the pair of double doors, knocking one door off its hinges. When the driver finally emerges from the vehicle he can be heard shouting, “I f—ing slipped, you a–hole!”
He backed up and hit the doors five times in total, according to a federal criminal complaint.
Kerry Burke / New York Daily News; Obtained by NYDN
Dan Sohail (inset) allegedly slammed his car into the entrance of the Chabad World Headquarters in Brooklyn on Jan. 28. (Kerry Burke / New York Daily News; Obtained by NYDN)
Sohail told authorities after his arrest that he recently learned he had Jewish heritage and was in the process of learning more about the Jewish tradition, according to the complaint. He said he was invited to an event at the Chabad headquarters that night, but he lost control of his car because of icy conditions and his foot slipped onto the gas pedal because he was wearing heavy boots, the complaint alleges.
“As alleged, the defendant’s conduct—driving his vehicle back and forth into an entrance of the synagogue five times— caused damage to a sacred religious institution,” U.S. Attorney Joseph Nocella said. “Our office will not tolerate conduct that endangers the safety of that community or any of our diverse communities.”
The day before the attack, Shohail prayed at a yeshiva in Carteret, New Jersey, telling those around him: ‘God calls me every day,’ the Daily News reported.
A rabbi at Yeshiva Gedola of Carteret told The News that Sohail told students there about his belief that he was Jewish and spoke of his frustrations with certain Chabad groups.
Rabbi Eliyahu Teitz told the News Sohail didn’t strike him as a bigot. “This was not an antisemitic attack, it was just that he was frustrated with the whole Lubavitch movement, because he felt they weren’t addressing his needs, so he took it out on the door with his car,” the rabbi said.
AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura
People clean up the scene where a car slammed into the entrance of the Chabad Lubavitch world headquarters in Brooklyn on Jan. 29. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
Sohail’s defense attorney in his state case said at his arraignment that he “expresses no animosity toward Jewish people.” Marshall also said Sohail had a history of mental health issues.
“He denies that the actions were intentional in the manner described by the government,” Sohail’s lawyer in the federal case, Mia Eisner-Grynberg, said Wednesday. Sohail worked as a generator technician and grass fertilizer technician, and mostly lived with his mother for the past 20 years, Eisner-Grynberg said.
Sohail is currently held on $500,000 cash bail or $1 million bond in his state case, and Eisner-Grynberg was asking he be released on bond in the federal case to live with his mother once the state charges are resolved.
Federal prosecutors asked Magistrate Judge Clay Kaminsky to hold him without bail, with Assisatnt U.S. Attorney warning that nothing would prevent him “from getting into a car and going to any other synagogue or any other house of worship and repeating the conduct.”
The judge said, though, that he’s inclined to eventually release Sohail, setting a date Wednesday for him to propose a bail package.