Orange County Man To Do Jail Time For Jewish Cemetery Graffiti

GOSHEN, NY — A Warwick man was sent to jail Wednesday after pleading guilty to tampering with physical evidence and fifth-degree conspiracy as a hate crime, both felonies. Eric Carbonaro, 18, was remanded to custody in the Orange Count Jail.

The charges for which pleaded guilty Feb. 21, 2018, stem from an investigation into the October 2016 spray-painting of swastikas and other anti-Semitic symbols at the Beth Shalom Cemetery in the Town of Warwick.

Orange County District Attorney David M. Hoovler’s office recommended that Carbonaro be sentenced to six months in jail and five years’ probation.

Also recommended was that Carbonaro not be sentenced as a “youthful offender,” a designation the court can impose that replaces a felony conviction and wipes the youth’s record of being convicted of a crime. He was 17 at the time of the crime.

In effect, the court placed him on interim probation supervision, with a jail component, leaving open the determination about his sentence and about whether the court will grant him youthful offender status.

“Our decision to oppose the court’s granting this defendant youthful offender status was based in large part on his utter failure to take responsibility for his actions,” Hoovler said. “This is a case that must be taken extremely seriously, and we must send a clear message that there is no room for the hateful desecration of religious property in Orange County. Given the seriousness of these crimes, the only appropriate sentence is one that includes incarceration. It is our view that this was not simply a youthful indiscretion, but rather a premeditated hate crime. These anti-Semitic symbols and messages do not reflect the values of the overwhelming majority of Orange County and Warwick residents. My office will thoroughly investigate and prosecute those who commit hate crimes.”

The damage to the cemetery was done during the overnight hours of Oct. 8 and 9, 2016, when images of swastikas, the words “Heil Hitler” and Nazi “SS” symbols were found spray-painted on walls and headstones.

When he pleaded guilty, Carbonaro admitted he took part in a conspiracy to damage property at the cemetery and acted in concert with others to destroy evidence of the crime by deleting images and other information pertaining to the desecration of the cemetery from two other co-conspirators’ cellphones.

Carbonaro also admitted he committed the conspiracy in whole or substantial part due to his belief or perception regarding the ancestry and religion of people buried in the cemetery.

Image via Shutterstock.