A Long Island teenager was sentenced to six months in jail by a District Court Judge in Hauppauge for having painted swastikas and the word “Jew” outside the home of a neighbor last summer. It is reportedly the first time in the history of Suffolk County, L.I., that a jail sentence was ordered for such an incident.
Police officer Howard Mandell, head of the county’s police department’s anti-Semitic task force, said that Thomas Benjamin, 18 was remanded to jail because a probation report stated that the youth “said he was anti-Semitic and would do it again.” Benjamin pleaded guilty to criminal mischief on the home of Leonard Syden in Ronkonkoma on Aug. 26. Judge Alfred Tisch handed down the sentence last week.
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