The man who was arrested in connection to a machete attack at a Hanukkah celebration pleaded not guilty to 10 federal hate crime charges.
Grafton Thomas, 37, was hit with the charges after allegedly wounding five Hasidic Jews in the home of a rabbi in New York on the seventh day of Hanukkah. Authorities uncovered journals layered with anti-Semitic cartoons and references to Adolf Hitler, prompting prosecutors to add federal hate crime charges last week. He already faced charges on the state level for attempted murder and burglary.
Thomas pleaded not guilty to the additional federal charges on Monday. In the courtroom, he argued that he was on drugs during the time of the attack and was not motivated by the fact that it was a Jewish celebration that he targeted. He revealed that he was taking the antidepressant Prozac as well as a drug for bipolar depression, Latuda.
Five people were injured in the machete attack in December, including one man who is still in a coma. If the man dies, Thomas could face the death penalty now that federal charges have been added.
Friends of Thomas have maintained that they do not believe he targeted the Hanukkah party because of anti-Semitic tendencies, despite the findings in his journals. His longtime pastor, Wendy Paige, said, “Grafton is not a terrorist, he is a man who has mental illness in America and the systems that be have not served him well.”
Gov. Andrew Cuomo called the attack an act of domestic terrorism. The family of the remaining hospitalized victim, Josef Neumann, said they were “not optimistic” that he would regain consciousness following the attack.
