New York teen to serve jail time for vandalizing Jewish cemetery

Dozens of members of the Temple Beth Shalom congregation attended the sentencing hearing.

By JTA
A member of a Neo-Nazi group attends the "Day of Honour" in Budapest, Hungary, February 10, 2018, as he commemorates the breakout attempt by Schutzstaffel (SS) troops from Soviet-surrounded Budapest during World War Two. (photo credit: BERNADETT SZABO / REUTERS)
A member of a Neo-Nazi group attends the "Day of Honour" in Budapest, Hungary, February 10, 2018, as he commemorates the breakout attempt by Schutzstaffel (SS) troops from Soviet-surrounded Budapest during World War Two.
(photo credit: BERNADETT SZABO / REUTERS)
(JTA) — A New York teen was sentenced to six months in jail for vandalizing a local Jewish cemetery.
Eric Carbonaro, 19, of Warwick, was sentenced Wednesday in Orange County Court for the October 2016 incident and apologized. He also must do 150 hours of community service.
He had pleaded guilty in February to two charges, including one that involved a hate crime.
Carbonaro spray-painted the wall of the Beth Shalom Cemetery in Warwick, an upstate town about 50 miles from New York City, with anti-Semitic graffiti including swastikas, “Heil Hitler” and Nazi SS symbols. He deleted photos and other information about the vandalism from the phones of two unnamed co-conspirators.
Dozens of members of the Temple Beth Shalom congregation attended the sentencing hearing, according to local reports, and several spoke in court.
At the hearing, Carbonaro said “I’m deeply sorry to the Jewish community and the community as a whole.”
His attorney, Alex Smith, said he had contacted Holocaust education centers on behalf of Carbonaro and they indicated a willingness to teach the teen.