Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Albuquerque Man Pleads Guilty To Threats Against Jewish Deli Owner

An Albuquerque, New Mexico man who made anti-Semitic threats against the Jewish owner of a local Jewish deli pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor hate crime.

John W. Ng, 58, pleaded guilty Thursday and was sentenced to four years probation, according to a news release issued by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Mexico.

The FBI arrested Ng in March 2014 for posting threatening, anti-Semitic notes on the door of the Nosh Jewish Delicatessen and Bakery on Jan. 22, 2014 and Feb. 8, 2014.

He was charged with “interfering with the victim’s federally protected rights by threatening her and interfering with her business because of her religion and because she owned a Jewish restaurant.”

Among the notes were: “FROM: The one you scarred for life scumbags; TO: The [anti-Semitic slur] who will die like rats.”

His trial was delayed almost a year, however, because of “competency” issues, according to the news release.

During Thursday’s guilty plea, Ng admitted telling the FBI that he “had a bad history with Jews and targeted the Nosh Jewish Delicatessen because he believed it was a good location to ensure that his message would reach as many Jews as possible.”

“Part of me wants to meet him, part of me doesn’t want to meet him,” deli owner Alisa Turtletaub told KOB Eyewitness News 4 after Ng was arrested last year. “I guess anybody in this situation you want to know why. Why do you have so much hate?”

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

2X match on all Passover gifts!

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:

  • Credit the Forward
  • Retain our pixel
  • Preserve our canonical link in Google search
  • Add a noindex tag in Google search

See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.