Police believe an alleged hate crime against a Jewish cafe in Winnipeg was orchestrated by the owners, Oxana and Alexander Berent.
Graffiti covered the walls of the cafe, and plates were thrown to the floor during the alleged hate crime last week. Initially, police claimed that a burglar also attacked a woman inside the restaurant after it closed, but Winnipeg Police Chief Danny Smyth said on Wednesday that the entire incident was staged.
“I am hugely disappointed and frankly angry that this family has used hate and racism in such a disingenuous way,” Smyth said. “In doing so they have allowed cynicism to creep into this discussion, cynicism that trivializes genuine victims of hate, cynicism that risks reinforcing stereotypes that the Jewish community here locally and throughout the world have fought hard to dispel.”
Smyth pointed to video evidence, forensics, and police interviews to back up his conclusion. The cafe had previously experienced vandalism on several occasions in recent months, but Smyth said those incidents could have also been manufactured.
As a result, the Berents and their 29-year-old son Maxim were arrested and charged with public mischief on Wednesday. But the Jewish Ukrainian family, who came to Canada from Israel in 2005, maintains that they are innocent.
“I didn’t fake,” Oxana said during a radio interview Thursday. “I will tell you something, OK? So I [hadn’t been] in the restaurant yet, but they say there were swastikas on the walls. You have to have this in your family to understand. All my grandmother’s family died in the Holocaust. Just her and her little brother survived. We don’t joke about that … We don’t joke about swastikas on our walls.”
According to Smyth, it’s uncertain what the motive for the allegedly staged crime was. However, the family appeared to be struggling financially and CTV News reported that the The Royal Bank of Canada sued Maxim this week for $43,628 in unpaid credit card debt. Oxana and Alexander were also instructed to pay more than $100,000 last year by the Manitoba Court of Queen’s Bench.
Oxana has denied the family’s financial situation was a factor in the allegedly fabricated crime.
