Drive-by shooter of two LA Jewish men to plead guilty to hate crimes
Police patrolled Pico-Robertson after a man was arrested for allegedly shooting two men shortly after they left prayer services.
By Louis Keene May 14, 2024
The mentally ill man accused of shooting two Jewish men as they left synagogue in Los Angeles 15 months ago will plead guilty to federal hate crimes, the Justice Department announced Tuesday, averting a trial where he could have been sentenced to life in prison.
Prosecutors say that Jaime Tran, 29, opened fire from his car in two separate incidents on consecutive days in Pico-Robertson, a heavily Orthodox neighborhood on LA’s Westside. Both men sustained minor injuries.
Tran, whose trial was scheduled to begin June 25, will instead plead guilty to two counts of hate crimes with intent to kill and two counts of using, carrying and discharging a firearm during and in relation to a violent crime. He will face 35 to 40 years in prison, according to the terms of the plea agreement, which prosecutors said would be finalized in court in “the coming weeks.”
“The defendant’s hatred led him to plan the murder of two innocent victims simply because he believed they were practicing their Jewish faith,” Krysti Hawkins, acting assistant director of the FBI’s LA office, said in a news release. “I’m relieved that the hard work by investigators and prosecutors led to Tran’s admission to these abhorrent crimes, and hope that members of the Jewish community take some solace in knowing that he will not be in the position to target their fellow members.”
Tran’s former classmates at UCLA’s School of Dentistry said that he espoused antisemitic conspiracy theories in a series of emails sent between August and December of 2022. One accused Persian Jews of inventing COVID-19 to increase prejudice against Asians like him. He attached a picture of a flier blaming Jews for the pandemic.
He also texted several threats to one Persian Jewish classmate, including, “Burn in an oven chamber you bitch Jew.”
Three months later, according to the authorities, on Feb. 15, 2023, Tran shot a man who was walking home from morning prayers on a side street, then sped off. Police originally said there was no reason to suspect antisemitism as a motive.
Less than 24 hours later, another Orthodox man returning from services was shot less than two blocks away from the first shooting.
Guy Taieb, the second victim, told me at the time that he was walking home from the Pinto Center, a French-Moroccan synagogue, when a sedan pulled up alongside him. The driver was wearing a black mask, Taieb said, and did not say anything before pulling out a gun and opening fire.
“He was looking for Jewish people for sure,” Taieb said at the time.
The similarity to the first incident raised alarm bells among LA’s Jewish leaders, but police and Jewish security groups at first publicly maintained that the two shootings were unrelated and that antisemitism did not appear to be a factor.
Meanwhile, the FBI were tracking Tran’s car. He was arrested in Riverside County, about 130 miles east of where the attacks occurred, the evening of the second shooting. He had a handgun and an assault rifle in his car, authorities said.
On Tuesday, prosecutors said that because Tran’s history of mental illness prevented him from legally buying a gun, he had asked someone in Phoenix to purchase the two weapons for him.
According to court documents, Tran told authorities last February that he looked for Jews by searching kosher restaurants on Yelp, and that he identified his victims by their “headgear.” In the plea agreement, he admitted that he intended to kill when he opened fire.
The Jewish Federation of Los Angeles praised law enforcement and the U.S. Attorney’s office in a statement, saying, “We are pleased that justice will be served.”
“We are pleased that justice will be served,” a Jewish Federation of Los Angeles spokesperson said in a statement on Jaime Tran’s guilty plea. pic.twitter.com/Cupf1DTW6P
— Louis Keene (@thislouis) May 15, 2024
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