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New York Man Sentenced to 36 Months for Hate Crimes

A New York man was sentenced to 36 months in federal prison for making anti-Semitic death threats to a Jewish woman in Connecticut.

CHRISTOPHER RASCOLL, 49, of Blauvelt, New York, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Kari A. Dooley in Bridgeport to 36 months of imprisonment, followed by three years of supervised release, for making anti-Semitic death threats to a Jewish resident of Stratford, Connecticut.

According to court documents and statements made in court, in November 2019, Rascoll began to threaten a woman, who is Jewish, through numerous text messages, voicemails and Facebook posts. In several text messages and voicemails, which continued until June 2020, Rascoll threatened to murder or seriously injure the victim. He also threatened to blow up the victim’s house and car. Some of Rascoll’s threatening text messages contained anti-Semitic references to the Holocaust.

On December 23, 2019, the first day of Hannukah, Rascoll sent the victim a message that included the words “Suns about to go down. It would be a shame if your house were used to light the menorah. Or turned in a gas chamber.” On April 8, 2020, the first day of Passover, Rascoll wrote “I’m going to kill you. You better be gone because if you’re in [the victim’s housing community] Easter weekend I’m going to stick you in an oven. Or I’m going to shoot you . . . . I should send you to a concentration camp.”

The FBI’s investigation also identified several other individuals who had been threatened and harassed by Rascoll.

“For seven months, this defendant’s hate-fueled threats made the victim in fear for her life, and she continues to suffer lingering effects of his vicious behavior,” said Acting U.S. Attorney Leonard C Boyle. “In addition to protecting the victim, this sentence sends an appropriate message that these crimes cannot be tolerated and will result in a lengthy prison term.”

Judge Dooley ordered Rascoll to serve the first three months of his supervised release in a residential reentry center. Rascoll has been detained since his arrest on June 26, 2020. On April 27, 2021, he pleaded guilty to one count of interference with the right to fair housing, a hate crime, and one count of sending threatening communications. This matter was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation with assistance from the Stratford Police Department. The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Sarala V. Nagala and Amanda S. Oakes.