{"id":324337,"date":"2026-08-18T21:00:12","date_gmt":"2026-08-18T21:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/324337\/"},"modified":"2026-08-18T21:00:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-18T21:00:12","slug":"man-faces-federal-hate-crime-charges-after-disrupting-services-at-central-synagogue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/324337\/","title":{"rendered":"Man faces federal hate crime charges after disrupting services at Central Synagogue"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao MvWXB TjIXL aGjvy ebVHC \">MIDTOWN (WABC) &#8212; A Bronx man who disrupted Friday evening services at Central Synagogue last week was slapped on Tuesday with federal hate crimes charges.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Larry Montes, 46, previously faced state-level charges of criminal mischief as a hate crime and attempted assault as a hate crime after what police called a &#8220;random antisemitic attack.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">In the complaint by the US Attorney&#8217;s office for the Southern District of New York, Montes faces two counts of committing hate crimes and one count of damage to religious property resulting in injury.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Montes stood up <a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/abc7ny.com\/post\/man-custody-disrupting-services-striking-woman-central-synagogue-midtown-east\/19680291\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">during the service<\/a> and approached the front yelling, &#8220;I am Hashem,&#8221; a Jewish reference to God, according to police.  He knocked over two candles and candle holders, causing them to break.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Police said Montes then struck a woman, cutting her lip and bruising her arm, and, when confronted by a security guard, headbutted him and uttered a racial slur.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Montes is being held on $10,000 bail following an appearance on a complaint drafted by the Manhattan district attorney&#8217;s office.  It was not immediately clear when he would appear before a federal magistrate.<\/p>\n<p>Submit a tip or story idea to Eyewitness News<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Have a breaking news tip or an idea for a story we should cover? Send it to Eyewitness News using the form below.    If attaching a video or photo, <a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/abc7ny.com\/image-video-solicitation-and-rights-terms-of-use\/5101040\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">terms of use apply.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Copyright \u00a9 2026 WABC-TV. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MIDTOWN (WABC) &#8212; A Bronx man who disrupted Friday evening services at Central Synagogue last week was slapped&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":324338,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[122162,9,11,10],"class_list":["post-324337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-122162","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=324337"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324337\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/324338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=324337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=324337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=324337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}