Dan Sohail pleaded guilty Wednesday in federal court in Brooklyn to damaging religious property after intentionally crashing his vehicle multiple times into the entrance of Chabad-Lubavitch World Headquarters at 770 Eastern Parkway in Crown Heights.

The proceeding was held before U.S. District Judge Eric N. Vitaliano. Sohail faces up to three years in prison, along with mandatory restitution, at sentencing.

“The defendant’s dangerous conduct was a targeted attack on the religious liberty and peace of worship to which every American is entitled,” said Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, Harmeet Dhillon. “Today’s conviction sends a clear message: the Department of Justice will not tolerate acts of hatred and violence against religious institutions.”

“By pleading guilty today, the defendant admitted that he intentionally damaged the Chabad-Lubavitch World Headquarters, a globally significant Jewish religious institution, by repeatedly crashing his vehicle into the building’s entrance,” said U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, Joseph Nocella Jr..

According to court filings and statements made during the plea hearing, the attack occurred on the evening of January 28 while the Chabad Headquarters on Eastern Parkway was hosting an event marking the yahrtzeit of the previous Lubavitcher Rebbe זי”ע.

Prosecutors said Sohail first exited his vehicle and moved security barriers that had been placed outside the building. After gesturing for congregants to move away, he got back into his vehicle and rammed the building’s side entrance.

He then reversed and accelerated into the entrance four more times, eventually knocking the door off its hinges.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)