2 Charged With Hate Crimes in Vandalism Aimed at Museum Officials
The New York Times
A group of vandals splattered red paint at the home of the Brooklyn Museum’s director and others. The institution has become a target of people opposed to the war in Gaza.
Two people have been charged with hate crimes, accused of being part of a group of vandals in June who smeared red paint and graffiti at the homes of the Jewish director of the Brooklyn Museum and other leaders of the institution.
Samuel Seligson, 32, of Brooklyn, a journalist, was charged on Tuesday with two counts of criminal mischief as hate crimes. His arrest came a week after the police arrested Taylor Pelton, 32, of Queens, who was charged with several counts of criminal mischief in the third degree as hate crimes.
The police said vandals attacked the Brooklyn Heights home of Anne Pasternak, director of the museum, by smearing red paint and graffiti across the entry of her apartment building and hanging a banner that accused her of being a “white-supremacist Zionist.”
The homes of two trustees and the museum’s president and chief operating officer, Kimberly Panicek Trueblood, were also targeted, Taylor Maatman, a museum spokeswoman, said at the time.
The attacks occurred a week after the police arrested dozens of activists outside the museum, including a leader of the pro-Palestinian group Within Our Lifetime, after a protest in which some people invaded the museum.
Ms. Pelton, who was also charged in Manhattan Criminal Court, is accused of driving Mr. Seligson and four other people who have not been apprehended.
