Man pleads guilty to hate crime against Orthodox Jews in 2022
A New Jersey man pleaded guilty Thursday to federal hate crime charges for a 2022 rampage in which he used a stolen vehicle and another car to try to kill four Jewish men in and around Lakewood, N.J., home to one of the most populous communities in the United States. Orthodox Jews in the United States.
The man, Dion Marsh, 29, pleaded guilty to five federal hate crime charges and one carjacking charge. Last week, Mr. Marsh pleaded guilty in Ocean County Superior Court in New Jersey to a single count of terrorism.
Mr. Marsh began his attack on the afternoon of April 8, 2022, when he attempted to carjack a vehicle driven by a man wearing traditional clothing that visibly identified him as Jewish, according to a statement from the Ocean County Prosecutor's Office in New Jersey. That driver locked his doors and drove away, but not before Mr Marsh managed to put his hand inside an open window. According to the prosecutor's office, the car drove for a block before Mr. Marsh let go.
Minutes later, Mr. Marsh pulled a Jewish man from another car and physically assaulted him before driving away in his car, according to a press release from the office of Philip R. Sellinger, U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey.
Over the next seven hours, prosecutors said, Mr. Marsh used the stolen car and another vehicle to terrorize Lakewood and the nearby community of Jackson Township, beating four men who all wore clothing that identified them as Orthodox Jews.
After ramming one man with the stolen car, Mr. Marsh got out and stabbed him in the chest with a knife, prosecutors said. Other victims suffered broken bones and internal injuries as a result of the attacks. All victims survived.
Within hours of the disaster, police arrested Mr. Marsh at his home in Manchester Township, a few miles from Lakewood. When he was arrested, Mr. Marsh said the attacks “had to be done” because “the Hasidic Jews” were “the real devils,” according to a federal criminal complaint.
Mr. Marsh's outburst of violence came as a surprise to local law enforcement, said Vita Mennie, a deputy public defender in Ocean County who served as one of his attorneys in state court.
“There is no history of any anti-Semitism in his past,” she said.
Four of the hate crime charges involve attempted murder, and each charge carries a maximum sentence of life in prison, the U.S. Attorney's Office said. The fifth hate crime charge carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison. The carjacking charge could carry an additional 15 years. Mr Marsh also faces a fine of up to $1.5 million.
The charge of state terrorism is added a mandatory prison sentence of at least 30 years. Mr. Marsh is expected to be sentenced in state court on March 11. His sentencing on the federal charges is scheduled for June 11.
The federal courts must decide whether Mr. Marsh will serve his state and federal prison sentences concurrently or consecutively, Ms. Mennie said.
The series of attacks, which came amid a nationwide wave of hate crimes against Jews, caused panic in Lakewood and in Jewish communities across the Northeast, said Scott Richman, executive director of the Anti-Defamation League of New York and New Jersey.
“People were scared,” said Mr. Richman, who traveled to the predominantly Jewish city in central New Jersey immediately after the attacks. “They wonder, 'Am I next?'”
The ADLs annual report of anti-Semitic incidents included 111 violent attacks on Jews in 2022, Mr. Richman said, including 81 in New York and New Jersey.
Since October 7 this year, when Hamas militants attacked Israel, “nearly 2,000 incidents have been reported to my office,” he said.