Austin, TX
Texas Man Pleads Guilty To Arson And Hate Crime For Setting Austin Synagogue Ablaze
Topline
A Texas man pleaded responsible on Friday to arson and to committing a hate crime for allegedly setting the Congregation Beth Israel synagogue in Austin, Texas, on hearth in October 2021, the Division of Justice introduced Friday, amid a string of antisemitic assaults and hate speech.
The Justice Division introduced a Texas man pleaded responsible Friday to arson and to committing a hate … [+]
Key Info
Franklin Barrett Sechriest, 20, pleaded responsible in a federal court docket in San Antonio, Texas, to all counts, based on a DOJ assertion.
Prosecutors declare Sechriest had gone to the synagogue to “scout out a goal,” based on journal entries discovered at his residence.
Seschriest had been charged by a federal grand jury in March 2022 with a number of civil rights violations, together with one depend of arson, one depend of harm to non secular property and one depend of setting hearth to commit a federal crime, and is scheduled to be sentenced on June 23.He faces as much as 20 years in jail and a $250,000 positive.
In an announcement, U.S. Legal professional Jaime Esparza known as the fireplace a “hate-filled” crime meant to “intimidate and undermine the wellbeing of your entire Jewish group.”
The hearth on the synagogue was one in all a number of antisemitic assaults, together with the lethal capturing at a Pittsburgh synagogue in October 2018 in addition to a January 2022 kidnapping throughout Saturday morning temple service at Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas, through which a Jewish rabbi was taken hostage.
Key Background
Federal officers declare Sechriest, who was 18 on the time and a member of the Texas State Guard, set the synagogue on hearth round 9 p.m. on the night time of Halloween in 2021. Surveillance footage later revealed him carrying a five-gallon container and bathroom paper into the synagogue’s sanctuary, the place the DOJ says he began the fireplace earlier than rapidly working away to a automobile parked exterior. FBI brokers later searched Sechriest’s home after tracing his automobile, discovering a receipt for the container and journal entries the place Sechriest documented his “hatred of and contempt for individuals of the Jewish religion.” A type of journal entries included the admission: “I set a synagogue on hearth,” the Austin American-Statesman reported.
Massive Quantity
$200,000. That’s how a lot injury the fireplace prompted, based on the Justice Division, which confirmed nobody was harm within the hearth.
Tangent
Latest antisemitic incidents in Texas and across the nation have drawn widespread condemnation, together with from President Joe Biden, who condemned a sequence of assaults in New York Metropolis, Salt Lake Metropolis and Los Angeles as “despicable, unconscionable” and “un-American” in a Could 2021 assertion (Biden issued one other assertion final December, calling on political leaders to begin “rejecting antisemitism wherever it hides”). Simone Talma Flowers, the director of the Interfaith Council of Central Texas, additionally condemned the fireplace on the Austin synagogue, saying, “hateful acts of intimidation to incite violence are unacceptable, and we is not going to be silent.” Following a sequence of high-profile antisemitic feedback in latest months totally on social media—together with posts from controversial artist Kanye West and a hyperlink to an anti-Jewish documentary posted by NBA star Kyrie Irving—second gentleman Doug Emhoff, who’s Jewish, mentioned there was an “epidemic of hate” and that “individuals are not saying the quiet components out loud, they’re screaming them.”
Additional Studying
‘Scout a goal’: Suspect in Congregation Beth Israel arson stored diary, feds say (Austin American-Statesman)
Texas man pleads responsible to setting hearth to Austin synagogue (Fort Price Star-Telegram)
Central Texas religion leaders and politicians rebuke antisemitic incidents after hearth exterior Austin synagogue (Texas Tribune)