Three members of the Jewish Defense League were sentenced Monday for carrying out a series of “terrorist” bombings here aimed at protesting the treatment of Jews in the Soviet Union.
Victor Vancier, 30, of Queens, N.Y., a former chairman of the Jewish Defense League, was sentenced to 10 years in prison Monday by Judge I. Leo Glasser of the federal district court in Brooklyn.
In imposing the sentence, the judge told Vancier, “You don’t go bombing innocent people to make a point.”
At a separate session earlier in the day, Murray Young, 60, of East Meadow, N.Y., received a five-year term and Sharon Katz, 44, of Manhattan, was given a three-year suspended sentence and five years’ probation, which includes six months of house arrest.
The incidents for which they were convicted included the firebombing at Avery Fisher Hall, Lincoln Center on Oct. 20, 1986, the day the Moscow State Symphony was scheduled to perform, and the tear gas grenade attack at the Metropolitan Opera House in September 1986, which injured 20 people among the audience attending a performance of the Moiseyev Dance Company.
Vancier, Young and another JDL member, Jay Cohen, 24, pleaded guilty last August to racketeering charges involving bombings, arson, extortion and fraud, for which they faced maximum sentences of 20 years. Katz pleaded guilty only to the Metropolitan Opera incident. Cohen was found dead of a drug overdose at a Catskills hotel last month. According to the authorities, Vancier served as JDL chairman from April 1985 to November 1986.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
