A New Jersey man who admitted to violent hate crimes against Orthodox Jews will spend 40 years behind bars.
Dion Marsh, 29, was sentenced to four decades in prison followed by five years of supervised release, the U.S. Department of Justice said Tuesday.
Marsh pleaded guilty in February to violating the Hate Crimes Prevention Act as well as to one count of carjacking, for stealing a car from a man, trying to run over several others and stabbing one of them in and around Lakewood, N.J. in 2022.
His victims were all dressed in traditional Orthodox Jewish garb, and Marsh admitted that was why he targeted them.
On April 8, 2022, at 1:18 p.m., Marsh hijacked one man’s car, assaulting and injuring him, and then sped off. Hours later, in a different car, he rammed into another Orthodox Jew at 5:20 p.m. in a deliberate attempt to kill him, then proceeded to hit three more men over the next few hours, all of them “visibly identifiable Orthodox Jews,” the Justice Department said.
The men suffered broken bones and internal injuries, while one of them was also stabbed.
“Enough is enough,” Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said in the statement. “Hate-fueled attacks on the Orthodox Jewish community are abhorrent, unlawful and contrary to our values as Americans.”
The Anti-Defamation League logged 3,697 antisemitic incidents throughout the United States in 2022, a 36% increase over 2021 and the most ever recorded by the ADL since it started keeping track in 1979, the group said last year.
The Lakewood incidents occurred a year and a half before the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on Israel sent incidents skyrocketing even further.
“The threat from hate-fueled violence is a sad reality that impacts far too many people across our state and our nation,” said U.S. Attorney Philip R. Sellinger for the District of New Jersey. “The sentence imposed today holds Marsh accountable for his brutal and hate-filled rampage.”
