US Justice Department Secures Conviction of Ohio Man Who Mauled Jewish Students

US federal law enforcement officials on Friday secured a guilty plea from a man who assaulted two Jewish students at The Ohio State University (OSU) in November 2023, amid an explosion of antisemitism precipitated by the Hamas-led Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel.

As previously reported by the Algemeiner, five Jewish students returning home from an off-campus event were brutally assaulted by two men who had detained and interrogated them to determine if they were Jewish, according to a civil rights complaint filed against OSU. Finding their answer, the two men allegedly shouted “Free Palestine!” and slugged one Jewish student each, breaking one’s jaw and the other’s nose and leaving one of them bleeding effusively. The complaint noted that the OSU Medical Center later denied one of the injured students more than one visitor and prohibited the other a seat in the waiting room, forcing them to stand “outside in the freezing cold for over five hours.”

One of the perpetrators was identified as Tipp City resident Timur Mamatov, now 20 years of age, with the help of the FBI Cincinnati Field Office, the US Department of Justice said in a press release on Friday. He was charged with and later admitted to violating the Hate Crimes Prevention Act and could spend as much as a decade in prison, pending sentencing.

“Mamatov admitted in court today that he assaulted victims because they were Jewish,” US attorney for the Ohio southern district Dominick S. Gerace II said in a statement. “No American should fear being violently attacked based on their religious beliefs. This office, along with our law enforcement partners, will aggressively pursue violence motivated by hate.”

Jose A. Perez, FBI criminal investigative division assistant director, added, “These college students were targeted by Mr. Mamatov simply because they were Jewish. Hate crimes not only impact the victims but have devastating impact on our entire community.”

Meanwhile, Assistant Attorney General of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division Harmeet K. Dhillon said, “Violence against people of faith is illegal and unacceptable.”

Just days before Mamatov’s guilty plea, the Justice Department announced the sentencing of a man who fired a pump-action shotgun outside the Temple Israel synagogue in Albany, New York to express his anti-Israel views and intimidate Jewish community members.

The perpetrator, 29-year-old Mufid Fawaz Alkhader, committed the offense on Dec. 7, 2023, exactly two months after Oct. 7, amid preparations for the observance of Hanukkah. According to the Justice Department, he commuted there via Uber from his residence in Schenectady, a city of the Capital Region that once possessed a thriving manufacturing sector and large middle class. Positioning himself in the front entrance, Alkhader discharged his firearm, purchased illegally, twice “into the air” as he bellowed “Free Palestine.”

His gun jammed on the third attempt, after which he turned his frustration on an Israeli flag pitched in front of the institution, the Justice Department said in a press release announcing the sentencing last week. Local law enforcement later apprehended Alkhader, but the security incident he precipitated frightened the congregation, causing it to “cancel a planned concert and candle lighting ceremony to celebrate Hanukkah that evening.”

Alkhader ultimately faced several criminal charges — for purchasing an illegal firearm, violating the religious rights of Temple Israel’s worshippers, and wielding a weapon while committing a violent crime. He will serve ten years in lockup and five years of supervised release.

“This shooting, outside of a synagogue on the eve of a Hanukkah celebration, was unfortunately emblematic of the antisemitic violence, rhetoric, and practices that have swept this country over the last few years,” acting US attorney John Sarcone for the Northern District of New York said in a statement. “This year, the Justice Department has emphatically said — through its words and actions — no more. My office, with our law enforcement partners, will do everything within our powers to make sure everyone in the Northern District of New York can exercise their right to practice their religion without fear and violence and hatred.”

Alkhader’s assault on Temple Israel occurred during an unrelenting wave of over 10,000 antisemitic incidents that hit the American Jewish community in the first year after Oct. 7. According to a 2024 report published by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) Center on Extremism on the first anniversary of Hamas’s massacre across southern Israel, antisemitic incidents in the US increased 200 percent. Thirty percent of the incidents recorded took place on college campuses and another 12 percent happened during anti-Israel protests. Another 20 percent targeted Jewish institutions, including nonprofit organizations and houses of worship. Of these, 50 percent were bomb threats.

The hatred has carried into 2025.

In June, a gunman murdered two Israeli embassy staffers in Washington, DC, while they exited an event at the Capital Jewish Museum hosted by a major Jewish organization. The suspect charged for the double murder, 31-year-old Elias Rodriguez from Chicago, yelled “Free Palestine” while being arrested by police after the shooting, according to video of the incident. The FBI affidavit supporting the criminal charges against Rodriguez stated that he told law enforcement he “did it for Gaza.”

Less than two weeks later, a man firebombed a crowd of people who were participating in a demonstration to raise awareness of the Israeli hostages who remain imprisoned by Hamas in Gaza. A victim of the attack, Karen Diamond, 82, later died, having sustained severe, fatal injuries.

Another antisemitic incident motivated by anti-Zionism occurred in San Francisco, where an assailant identified by law enforcement as Juan Diaz-Rivas and others allegedly beat up a Jewish victim in the middle of the night. Diaz-Rivas and his friends approached the victim while shouting “F—k the Jews, Free Palestine,” according to local prosecutors.

According to the latest data released by the FBI earlier this month, antisemitic hate crimes in the US have been tallying to break all previous statistical records. In 2024, even as hate crimes decreased overall, those perpetrated against Jews increased by 5.8 percent in 2024 to 1,938, the largest total recorded in over 30 years of the FBI’s counting them. Jewish American groups have noted that this surge, which included 178 assaults, is being experienced by a demographic group which constitutes just 2 percent of the US population.

A striking 69 percent of all religion-based hate crimes that were reported to the FBI in 2024 targeted Jews, with 2,041 out of 2,942 total such incidents being antisemitic in nature. Muslims were targeted the next highest amount as the victims of 256 offenses, or about 9 percent of the total.

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.