Many of the headstones at Poile Zedek Cemetery in New Brunswick were leveled during a vandalism spree discovered Jan. 6, in which about 600 stones were either knocked over or destroyed. Photo by Debra Rubin
March 20, 2008
Four teens who pleaded guilty to vandalizing a Jewish cemetery in New Brunswick in January were sentenced March 17 to time served, community service, and attending courses at a Holocaust and genocide education center.
The youths were also ordered to pay restitution ranging from $2,500 to $5,000.
Some Jewish community leaders said the sentences were disappointingly light considering the scope of the damage, which included over about 600 toppled or broken gravestones and repair costs estimated between $500,000 and $1 million.
The four youths, ages 15-17, were charged with juvenile equivalents of conspiracy, desecration of venerated objects, and criminal mischief. They could have received a year’s imprisonment for each count of conspiracy and desecration and a maximum of two years jail time for each count of criminal mischief.
Although the Middlesex Prosecutor’s Office asked that the youths remain imprisoned, Superior Court Judge Jane B. Cantor explained in her March 17 ruling that she chose the lighter punishment because none of the defendants had prior criminal records and because she did not believe they had thought through their actions.
“We basically asked for the maximum sentence, but the judge passed her sentence and we obviously have to accept her sentence,” said assistant Middlesex County prosecutor Ralph Cretella, who handled the case.
Some local Jewish leaders also questioned the sentence.
“Yes, I’m disappointed, not just for myself and the community, but for the perpetrators as well,” said Rabbi Abraham Mykoff of New Brunswick’s Congregation Poile Zedek, which shares the Joyce Kilmer Avenue cemetery with Sephardi Congregation Etz Ahaim of Highland Park.
“They seem to have flourished a little in incarceration,” added Mykoff. “They really need some rehabilitation and guidance. A year or so might have benefited them, and now they’re going back to the regular system.”
Etz Ahaim’s Rabbi David Bassous said he feared the sentence had little “deterrent value.” The youths, he said, seemed to have “no discipline at home, no guidance. What struck me is that most of the teens were failing in school, but while they were in detention they were all honor students. It seemed structure added something to their lives. I can’t see them going back to high school and not getting in more trouble.”
“The judge kept mentioning that these were just children, but these children had knocked down over 500 gravestones,” Bassous said. “That [sentence] may have been appropriate if they had knocked down five or 10. It seemed like it was treated as a prank. But it was much more than a prank.”
The rabbis, who attended the sentencing hearings, said they learned some of the youths had emotional problems and other issues and appeared to be from poor, single-parent families.
“Some appeared to be recent immigrants to America; some of the mothers didn’t speak English,” said Bassous.
Cantor sentenced the four to 100 hours of community service and ruled that they must attend classes at the Center for Holocaust Studies at Brookdale Community College in Lincroft. The four must regularly go to school and write letters of apology to the two congregations. They will also be on probation for 18 months.
Cretella said some of the boys were also required to attend counseling.
He also said that if the restitution is not repaid by the time probation ends, the case would be turned over to supervised collections.
“It pretty much stays with them until they pay,” Cretella said.
The names of the teens have been withheld because of their ages. They had been held at the Middlesex County Juvenile Detention facility since their Jan. 9 arrest days after the two incidents, on Jan. 1 and 4.
Authorities said the vandalism spree was not a bias crime because the four, who had been drinking on at least one of the occasions, were not aware they were in a Jewish cemetery, there was no evidence of religious animosity in their or their families’ backgrounds, they were not members of any known hate group, and there was no anti-Semitic graffiti left behind.
Mykoff said he didn’t feel the teens showed remorse for their destructive spree.
“Yes, I’m sure they were sorry. Sorry they were caught, sorry for all the problems that resulted to them from this, but remorse — I don’t know,” he said.
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