SYRACUSE, N.Y. – A former Cornell University student arrested for posting statements threatening violence against Jewish people on campus last fall after the start of the war in Gaza was sentenced Monday to 21 months in prison.
Patrick Dai, of suburban Rochester, New York was accused by federal officials in October of posting anonymous threats to shoot and stab Jewish people on a Greek life forum. The threats came during a spike in antisemitic and anti-Muslim rhetoric related to the war and rattled Jewish students on the upstate New York campus.
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Dai pleaded guilty in April to posting threats to kill or injure another person using interstate communications.
He was sentenced in federal court to 21 months in prison and three years of supervised release by Judge Brenda Sannes, according to federal prosecutors. The judge said Dai “substantially disrupted campus activity” and committed a hate crime, but noted his diagnosis of autism, his mental health struggles and his non-violent history, according to cnycentral.com.
Dai, 22, had faced a possible maximum sentence of five years in prison.
“Every student has the right to pursue their education without fear of violence based on who they are, how they look, where they are from or how they worship,” Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said in a news release. “Antisemitic threats of violence, like the defendant’s vicious and graphic threats here, violate that right."
Dai’s mother has said he she believes the threats were partly triggered by medication he was taking to treat depression and anxiety.
Public defender Lisa Peebles has argued that Dai is pro-Israel and that the posts were a misguided attempt to garner support for the country.
“He believed, wrongly, that the posts would prompt a ‘blowback’ against what he perceived as anti-Israel media coverage and pro-Hamas sentiment on campus,” Peebles wrote in a court filing.
Dai, who was a junior at the time, was suspended from the Ivy League school in Ithaca, New York.