(New York Jewish Week) — After a legal saga that has endured for more than two years and drawn public attention to antisemitic street violence in New York City, all five of the men who attacked Joseph Borgen while he was en route to a pro-Israel rally in 2021 have received court sentences.
The last assailant, Mohammed Said Othman, 29, was sentenced on Wednesday to three years in state prison for attempted gang assault, and up to four years for assault in the third degree as a hate crime, both felonies. The sentences will be served concurrently.
Borgen’s assault by a group of men in Midtown Manhattan drew international attention and left him needing surgery on his wrist. Since then — in a string of court hearings that have prompted discussion of how severely hate crimes suspects should be punished — four of his five assailants have been sentenced to prison. A fifth was put on probation, but violated the terms of his release and landed in jail.
The assault in May 2021 occurred at the conclusion of the last round of conflict between Israel and Hamas, and the court proceedings and debates around it have stretched into the current war. Today, antisemitism is again spiking in New York City and pro-Palestinian rallies have returned as a near-daily fixture on the city’s streets — many of them by the same groups that protested in 2021.
“It sends a strong message moving forward that Jewish blood isn’t cheap and all hate crimes, for that matter, shouldn’t be treated lightly,” Borgen told the New York Jewish Week outside the New York State Supreme Court in downtown Manhattan following the sentencing.
Borgen, who said he was “content with the sentencing,” is pursuing a civil case against the five attackers. But he also expressed relief that the criminal proceedings were finished.
“We’ve got a civil case to take care of,” he said. “But now this is all said and done.”
He added that he hopes to “kind of take a step back, take a deep breath and hopefully just push forward, keep fighting for the Jews.”
Said Othman, from Brooklyn, pleaded guilty to the charges in September. After his release from prison, he will be under supervision, similar to parole, for three years. He told Judge Felicia Mennin, “I realize what I did was wrong,” and apologized to Borgen, his family and the Jewish community.
“This is not the example I want to go by for my son,” Said Othman said, with his supporters seated in the courtroom behind him. Borgen’s supporters sat across the aisle, many wearing kippahs and hats with the slogan “Justice for Joey.”
Mitch Silber, director of the Community Security Initiative, which coordinates security for local Jewish communities, applauded Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg for prosecuting the attackers.
Silber, who attended the sentencing, said the prosecutions had “possibly kept the lid on violence in New York” following Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel. While there have been a number of street attacks in New York since Oct. 7, the rallies have not seen attacks on Jews.
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The 2021 conflict, which lasted less than two weeks, saw a number of violent incidents connected to street demonstrations. In addition to the attack on Borgen, pro-Palestinian activist Saadah Masoud was sentenced to federal prison for attacking a Jewish pro-Israel counter-protester, Matt Greenman, in May of 2021.
Police have also stepped up their presence at demonstrations this year due to the violence in 2021.
“The fact that there are consequences for attacking a Jew in New York City for no other reason than being a Jew has reverberated after 10/7,” Silber told the New York Jewish Week in the courtroom. “Yes we’ve seen protest activity, yes we’ve seen antisemitic incidents, but we haven’t seen any type of dramatic gang assaults like we saw in May of 2021.”
Borgen’s assault happened on the evening of May 20, 2021, after the attackers left a pro-Palestinian protest at Times Square around 7 p.m. As they walked up Broadway, they encountered Borgen, who was wearing a kippah. The assailants chased Borgen down the street, and Said Othman grabbed him, threw him to the ground and repeatedly punched him in the face. The group then kicked and pepper sprayed Borgen while he was on the ground, and made antisemitic remarks.
Ahead of the rally, the defendants coordinated their plans to attend and discussed how to conceal their identities. Assailant Mohammed Othman, 26 — who received a 5 1/2-year sentence in state prison — said he would not let the rally remain peaceful, while Said Othman said he wanted to burn an Israel flag, according to a statement from Bragg’s office on Wednesday.
Another attacker in the case, Mahmoud Musa, 25, was sentenced to seven years in state prison in November. The two other defendants received lighter sentences.
“These defendants violently targeted and assaulted another individual simply because he is Jewish,” Bragg said in the statement. “While this office will always support the right to peacefully protest and engage in open dialogue, these multi-year prison sentences make clear that physically attacking someone because of their religion is never acceptable.”
Said Othman, Masoud and other demonstrators who have been prosecuted for antisemitic hate crimes have demonstrated with the pro-Palestinian group Within Our Lifetime, which organizes frequent anti-Israel demonstrations in the city. The group has led rallies that have blocked traffic in recent weeks and targeted institutions including the Memorial Sloan Kettering cancer hospital. The group regularly calls for Israel’s destruction and endorsed the Oct. 7 attack.
At the conclusion of the sentencing, Borgen said he feels the city has not gotten safer since his assault. The protesters during the current conflict “are the same group that attacked me,” he told the New York Jewish Week.
“They’re still going around the city, doing whatever they want to do,” he said.
