Judge Felicia Mennin ordered Manhattan Criminal Court officers to eject from her courtroom a large and rowdy group that called her “racist,” and yelled, “Free Palestine,” after she sentenced “Palestinian-American” Mahmoud Musa, 23, to seven years for attacking a Jewish man named Joseph Borgen in Times Square on May 20, 2021.
Assistant District Attorney Jonathon Junig asked the court for six and a half years in prison for Musa who is facing another criminal hearing for touching the breasts of a Rikers Island corrections officer. But the judge used her discretion to sentence Musa to seven years.
Musa’s large crowd of supporters, who arrived late while the court was already in session, started yelling at the judge, and it took the officers some 20 minutes to remove them from the courtroom.
An NYPD-released video shows three men – Musa, Faisal Elezzi, and Waseem Awawdeh, pepper-spraying and beating Joseph Borgen, who was wearing a yarmulke. Borgen was kicked, punched, and beaten with crutches, while his attackers used antisemitic slurs.
“I felt a liquid being poured on my face, and at first I thought I was getting urinated on, but it turned out I was getting maced and pepper sprayed,” Borgen told the New York Post after the 2021 attack. “My face was on fire. That pain was worse than the concussion and all this other stuff that followed. … If the cops had not come, if they had not saved my life, I would have died.”
Waseem Awawdeh was out two days after his arrest, and despite his telling prison guards, “If I could do it again, I would do it again,” Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg offered him a plea deal of only six months in prison. After public outrage, including protests and condemnations by elected officials, his sentence was raised to eighteen months. Faisal Elezzi got off with probation and an obligation to complete “anti-bias programming.”
Musa and a fourth defendant, Mohammed Othman, pleaded guilty to charges of second-degree assault as a hate crime. Musa was very upset when he heard his heavy sentence, and complained that the other perpetrators got off lightly.
Before sentencing, Musa apologized to his victim and the Jewish people and told the court he went to Times Square to “emotionally support Palestine and spread awareness,” insisting, “No, it wasn’t a hate crime, it was just a lot going on. This was a hate crime the way it played out, but I didn’t mean it like that.” He also said the Israel-Hamas war “breaks my heart. I hope we can exist peacefully.”
A regular Mahatma Gandhi.
Borgen told the NY Post, “If you’re going to go attack me in the street because I’m wearing a yarmulke, shout antisemitic slurs at me, and then after the fact celebrate what you did, I don’t think you’re remorseful.”
Borgen’s supporters were asked by court officers to remain inside for some 30 minutes for their own safety after the convicted Musa’s violent supporters had been thrown out.
