Grafton Thomas, the man accused of stabbing several people at a Hasidic rabbi’s home near New York City on December 28, was charged with new charges on Friday, the local prosecutor said.
The 37-year-old man, with a heavy psychiatric background according to his family, has been charged with six counts of attempted murder, three counts of assault, three more counts of attempted assault, and two counts of burglary, according to the county prosecutor. of Rockland, which includes the town of Monsey, 50 km north of New York City, where the assault took place.
These charges suggest that the suspect assaulted at least six people when police initially spoke of five people injured and hospitalized. One of them, a 72-year-old man, Josef Neumann, who was injured in the head, is still in critical condition.
Five counts of hate crimes
Thomas was also charged with five counts at the federal level for “hate crimes”. This category of offenses includes people targeted for their ethnicity, religion, gender identity or disability.
According to US media reports, police are also investigating the possibility that he was the perpetrator of another knife attack on an Orthodox Jew on November 20 in Ramapo, also in Rockland County. When questioned, Ramapo police did not confirm this information.
On Wednesday, Kim Thomas, the mother of Grafton, a nurse at a New York hospital, once again tried to defend her son. Born in the Jewish quarter of Crown Heights, he said he grew up in harmony with the community. He was a “Shabbat goy,” a non-Jew who helps Jews on Friday afternoons with small tasks that the weekly rest ritual puts on their internet, she told New York Post. Convinced of her son’s mental illness, she tried to have him interned last May.
Newsletter Morning essentials
A tour of the news to start the day
—
Incarcerated in the Orange County Jail, Grafton Thomas has reportedly received no medical treatment so far.
–
