Man gets 6-month sentence for ramming car into Jewish group's NY world
headquarters
[July 30, 2026]
By LARRY NEUMEISTER
NEW YORK (AP) — A man was sentenced Wednesday to six months and a week
behind bars for ramming his car into the Chabad Lubavitch world
headquarters, the Jewish institution in New York where his lawyer said
he'd been trying to win acceptance as he struggled with psychological
issues.
Dan Sohail, 36, was sentenced in Brooklyn federal court by a judge who
declined a recommendation by prosecutors that he force Sohail to remain
behind bars for another eight months. The sentence clears the way for
the New Jersey man, who has already spent six months in detention, to be
released in about a week.
Prosecutors had sought a stiffer sentence as a wider warning to those
who might attack Jewish interests amid a dramatic rise in hate crimes
against the Jewish population.
Judge Eric N. Vitaliano said he was "somewhat saddened" to see that the
Justice Department wanted him to be influenced at sentencing by a
mistaken initial impression among the wider public that the Jan. 28
attack was a hate crime.
No one was injured when Sohail drove his car into the Chabad
Headquarters' side entrance five times, knocking the door off its hinges
and destroying his car's front bumper. Before he drove toward the
building, he waived passersby away, a fact the judge mentioned at
sentencing as he ordered him to pay $20,000 restitution.
The complex at 770 Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn includes a synagogue and
offices, and was bustling with people at the time, authorities there
said.
Prosecutors in their arguments prior to sentencing noted that “a
staggering” 80 of 146 hate crime incidents across New York City since
the start of the year were based on crimes against Jews and Jewish
institutions.
Vitaliano said the government's argument for a stiff sentence to send a
deterrent message to the general public was in part based on the fact
that the attack was initially cast as an “I-hate-the-Jews crime, or,
worse, an act-of-terrorism crime.”
But he noted that federal prosecutors ultimately charged the Carteret,
New Jersey, man with intentionally damaging religious property and
Sohail pleaded guilty in mid-May.
The judge cited a psychiatric report he reviewed and said Sohail's
mental health challenges “played an important role” in his
decision-making.
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People clean up after a car slammed into the entrance of the
Chabad Lubavitch world headquarters, Jan. 29, 2026, in New York. (AP
Photo/Yuki Iwamura, File)
“This is a sad tale,” Vitaliano said.
Defense attorney Mia Eisner-Grynberg told the judge in court papers
prior to the sentencing that Sohail was battling depression and
post-traumatic stress disorder after a traumatizing childhood when
he carried out the attack even as he “desperately sought belonging
and understanding through his exploration of Judaism.”
She said Sohail attended the Chabad he eventually attacked and
“found the rabbinical students there warm and welcoming.”
Eisner Grynberg said Sohail “danced with them” and followed their
instructions to visit Israel, but he became erratic and extremely
anxious after he returned to the United States and was “begging”
members of the Chabad to assist him.
Driving the car into the building, she said, was “an irrational cry
for help.”
Sohail did not speak at sentencing, but he thanked the judge at the
end of the proceeding.
The crash occurred on the 75th anniversary of Rabbi Menachem Mendel
Schneerson becoming the leader of the Lubavitch movement and
prompted immediate concern in the city. Schneerson died in 1994, but
remains a revered figure globally. There has been a near-constant
police presence around the Chabad Lubavitch world headquarters for
years.
The site was at the epicenter of the Crown Heights riots in 1991,
when Black residents of the neighborhood attacked Jews after a child
was killed by a car traveling in Schneerson’s motorcade. In 2014, a
disturbed man entered the synagogue and stabbed a rabbinical
student, wounding him, before being shot dead by police.
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