Suspect in antisemitic subway rant pleads guilty to hate crime
Bradley Werner was caught on video screaming at a Hasidic man that he would not be safe in Manhattan and should go back to Brooklyn
By Jacob Kornbluh August 8, 2023
A suspect in a 2021 antisemitic subway attack on a Hasidic Jew from Brooklyn in 2021 pleaded guilty to a hate crime on Tuesday, the Manhattan District Attorney’s office confirmed.
The suspect, Bradley Werner, was caught on video harassing the Hasidic man after pushing him on a subway train headed toward midtown Manhattan.
“I’m f***ing German,” Werner told the victim, who declined to be identified, citing concerns for his safety.
“We assimilated … Everyone hates you for not being part of the community,” ranted Werner, who claimed some Jewish heritage. “Don’t ever f***ing come here. Go back to Brooklyn, you’re safe there. But here you’re not.” Werner also told the man that “everyone hates you” and blamed unassimilated Jews for the treatment of Palestinians.
The victim, who lives in the heavily Orthodox neighborhood of Borough Park, shared the video with the Forward after he filed charges a year after the incident, saying he initially felt fearful about reporting it.
“Bradley Werner targeted a Jewish man and has now been held accountable for his anti-Semitic hate crime,” Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said in a statement. “Nobody should ever feel unsafe because of their faith, and my Office will continue to thoroughly investigate incidents of hate and bias in our communities.”
Werner was arrested in September after being identified.
On Tuesday he pleaded guilty to aggravated harassment in the second degree, which is a class-A misdemeanor hate crime. The maximum sentence for the crime is 364 days. Since Werner has been held in pre-trial custody for the past 11 months on a separate hate crime charge, he was sentenced to time served.
The victim expressed his deep appreciation to the Manhattan DA’s office, in particular Christina Kapalko, assistant district attorney, “for taking the incident very seriously and sincerely” and for making him “feel welcomed in this city as a citizen with rights.”
Update: This post has been updated with the victim’s reaction.
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