Five years after a wave of riots tore through the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, a black man is being indicted as an adult for allegedly violating the civil rights of a slain Jew.
Yankel Rosenbaum, an Orthodox Jew from Australia who was living in the largely Lubavitch and black neighborhood, was killed by a gang of rampaging black teens during the August 1991 riots.
Rosenbaum was stabbed four times and later died at the hospital after identifying Nelson as one of his attackers.
Nelson, who is now 21, was 16 at the time.
In addition, another man, Charles Price, 43, has for the first time been indicted for allegedly inciting the crowd to commit acts of violence against Jews.
The riots began when a car accompanying the late Lubavitcher rebbe, Menachem Schneerson, hit two black children who were playing on the sidewalk a few blocks from the Lubavitch headquarters.
One of the children, Gavin Cato, was killed and his cousin was seriously injured.
Some of the neighborhood’s black residents surrounded the car driven by a Lubavitcher and accused the the medics of Hatzolah, an independent Jewish ambulance service in New York City, of attending first to the Chasidim rather than to the more seriously injured children.
Black residents of the area responded violently and several, led by Price, surrounded Rosenbaum and stabbed him, according to the indictment.
The indictment was unsealed Wednesday and announced by the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, Zachary Carter.
Nelson was initially charged as a juvenile with second-degree murder and tried in a New York state court. The jury acquitted him after a six-week trial, prompting outrage among many in the Chasidic community.
Pressure from political leaders and prominent Chasidim led federal authorities to bring the civil rights charges two years later.
If convicted, Nelson and Price each face a life sentence in prison and a $250,000 fine. Nelson’s trial is slated to begin Oct. 7. Price’s trial is as yet unscheduled.
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