A man convicted of using a homemade bomb to try to burn down a Jewish shelter in Massachusetts has been sentenced to five years in prison
A man convicted of using a homemade bomb to try to burn down a Jewish shelter in Massachusetts, USA, was sentenced to five years in prison, in addition to the years of imprisonment he had already run.
John Rathbon, 38, was sentenced Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Springfield to three more years on probation, the Associated Press reported.
He was convicted by a jury in June 2020 on two federal charges related to the arson attempt. He was also convicted by a separate jury in November 2020 of lying testimony to FBI investigators about the location of the flammable substance.
“There is no way to undo the damage that John Rathbon has done to the elderly occupants of the sheltered Jewish housing and to the entire community, with hateful, repulsive and violent behavior. Today’s sentence holds him accountable for placing a firebomb, and for lying to us about it.” , Said Joseph Bonbulonta, head of the FBI office in Boston, in a statement.
The public defender, who represented the criminal, stated that “the man we represent is not driven by anti-Semitism, but is struggling with a severe drug addiction at the time.”
As reported in Behadrei Haredim, John Michael Rathbon, 38, was convicted in a Massachusetts court in the United States of attempting to blow up a Jewish nursing home in April 2020. He was charged with attempting to transfer or receive explosive devices between countries. , Some from abroad, and in an attempt to maliciously damage or destroy personal property in an attempt to kill, injure or intimidate, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Boston announced.
John Michael Rathbon tried to set fire to the entrance to the nursing home, but miraculously failed to carry out his plot, after the fire was not caught as planned. The man has also previously been charged with perjury to federal agents. The jury found that he was guilty of lighting a “fire bomb” right at the entrance to a Jewish nursing home, a “cruel and pointless crime,” Massachusetts District Attorney Nathaniel Mendel said after the conviction that “thanks to the jury’s verdict and the good work of “Prosecutors and investigators, the man who planned to harm our community will not pose a threat to public safety any time soon.”