A New York man was sentenced Thursday to more than 18 years in prison for throwing fire bombs at five Muslim and Hindu houses of worship.
United States District Judge LaShann DeArcy Hall sentenced 46-year-old Ray Lazier Lengend to 18 years and 10 months behind bars and then three years of supervised release for the attacks in Queens.
“Lengend’s firebombing of houses of worship out of hatred of certain religions and races is the antithesis of what this country is all about,” U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, Richard P. Donoghue, said in a statement. “Such hate-filled crimes, through which he spread fear and endangered the lives of first responders and others, will never be tolerated by the Justice Department or the American people.”
Last December, the Queens resident pleaded guilty to two counts of hate crimes through the use of fire and explosives.
A senior FBI official said Lengend threw Molotov cocktails at a Shiite mosque, the Imam Al-Khoei Foundation, a Hindu temple, and two other facilities on Jan. 1, 2012.
“In 2012, Lengend, motivated by hate, fire-bombed five buildings in Queens with the intent to kill or maim innocent people simply because of their religion or national origins,” FBI Assistant Director-in-Charge of the New York field office William F. Sweeney, Jr. said in a statement.
Lengend was taken into custody a day after the attacks. He told police he had hoped to “take out as many Arabs as possible” through the bombings.
No one was wounded in the attacks.
