{"id":243427,"date":"2025-09-21T08:01:51","date_gmt":"2025-09-21T08:01:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/243427\/"},"modified":"2025-09-21T08:01:51","modified_gmt":"2025-09-21T08:01:51","slug":"texas-man-indicted-for-threats-against-nyc-mayoral-candidate-zohran-mamdani","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/243427\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas man indicted for threats against NYC mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Texas man raised in an Orthodox Jewish family in the Boston area has been charged with threatening Zohran Mamdani<\/a>, the Democratic nominee for New York City mayor.<\/p>\n

Jeremy Fistel, 44, was arraigned Thursday in Queens on a 22-count indictment that includes charges of making a terroristic threat and aggravated harassment.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors say he barraged Mamdani with hateful phone calls and online messages over a seven-week span beginning in June, calling him a \u201cterrorist,\u201d telling him he did not belong in America, and warning him not to start his car, suggesting it would explode.<\/p>\n

The calls, which Mamdani\u2019s campaign shared at the time, also told Mamdani to \u201ccheck your beeper,\u201d in an apparent allusion to Israel\u2019s deadly detonation of thousands of beepers belong to Hezbollah operatives<\/a> in Lebanon last year.<\/p>\n

Mamdani, a pro-Palestinian state assemblyman from Queens who is poised to become the city\u2019s first Muslim mayor if elected, has received an order of protection from Fistel.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe cannot and will not be intimidated by racism, Islamophobia, and hate,\u201d his campaign said in a statement. \u201cZohran remains steadfast in his conviction that New York must be a city where every single person \u2014 regardless of faith, background, or identity \u2014 is safe, protected, and at home.\u201d<\/p>\n

A statement from Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz said, \u201cWe take threats of violence against any office holder extremely seriously \u2014 and there is no room for hate or bigotry in our political discourse.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fistel, who pleaded not guilty, faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted of the most serious charges. He was extradited from Plano, Texas, after being arrested earlier this month.<\/p>\n

His lawyer told the judge that Fistel did not intend harm and was unaware his calls could be criminal, The New York Times reported.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve never been in a fight with anybody,\u201d Fistel told police in Texas, according to prosecutors. \u201cI\u2019m not the guy, man. I\u2019m just a regular guy. I know I didn\u2019t sound like a nice guy on the phone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Court records show this is not Fistel\u2019s first encounter with the law. In 2012, he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute marijuana, a case that stretched for years and drew numerous character references describing his personal and religious background.<\/p>\n

Raised in Sharon, Massachusetts, he attended Orthodox Jewish private schools and grew up immersed in synagogue life. After his father\u2019s sudden death, he regularly accompanied his younger brother Joshua \u2014 who has developmental disabilities \u2014 to services at Young Israel of Sharon \u201cin honor of our father,\u201d according to a letter submitted in his defense.<\/p>\n

Friends from his college years at the University of Maryland also recalled his Jewish involvement. A rabbi who knew him through Hillel wrote to the sentencing judge that Fistel had attended services, explored Jewish identity and delivered food packages to the homeless each Purim.<\/p>\n

Other letters described him as a stabilizing presence in his family and community, someone who gave generously to Jewish and secular charities, including the Hillel Foundation.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors now say that Fistel eventually turned to threatening an elected official whose background and politics he disdained. Mamdani is a vocal critic of Israel. At least one of Fistel\u2019s alleged messages to Mamdani invoked Israel directly, which said, \u201cI\u2019d love to see an IDF bullet go through your skull,\u201d referring to the Israel Defense Forces, the Times reported.<\/p>\n

The case marks the latest example of political violence that appears to be surging: Last week, conservative activist Charlie Kirk was fatally shot in Utah<\/a>, and in June, Minnesota Democratic legislator Melissa Hortman and her husband were killed at their home.<\/p>\n

In an interview with the Times, Mamdani, who has built his campaign on grassroots accessibility, said he would not alter his style of close public engagement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Texas man raised in an Orthodox Jewish family in the Boston area has been charged with threatening…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":243428,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,11307,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,358,39803,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,5301],"class_list":{"0":"post-243427","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-arrests","10":"tag-new-york","11":"tag-new-york-city","12":"tag-newyork","13":"tag-newyorkcity","14":"tag-ny","15":"tag-nyc","16":"tag-texas","17":"tag-threats","18":"tag-united-states","19":"tag-united-states-of-america","20":"tag-unitedstates","21":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","22":"tag-us","23":"tag-usa","24":"tag-zohran-mamdani"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115241245021825375","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243427","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=243427"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243427\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/243428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=243427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=243427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}