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A second person has been charged with a hate crime in connection with an attack last month on a Muslim family in Rego Park.
A second person has been charged with a hate crime in connection with an attack last month on a Muslim family in Rego Park, according to prosecutors. Eric Leon, 37, is accused of teaming up with his girlfriend on Nov. 6 in assaulting a Muslim man in the parking lot of the Woodhaven Boulevard building where they all live, the Queens District Attorney’s Office said in a news release.
Prosecutors said Leon kicked the man repeatedly in the head and the face and threatened to kill the man’s family — all in front of the man’s wife and two daughters. The attack left the man, Khaled Aly, with several fractures that required surgery. Leon’s girlfriend, Giselle DeJesus, was arrested last month in connection with the Nov. 6 attack, after prosecutors accused her grabbing Aly’s wife’s Hijab while yelling “f—ing Muslim” at her, then kicking Aly in the stomach and cursing at him as her boyfriend beat him up.
“Perpetrators of hate crimes must be held accountable everywhere and certainly in the most diverse county in the nation,” Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz said in a statement. “The defendant charged in this case allegedly attacked a couple – his own neighbors – because of his hate and prejudice against Muslims.”
The NYPD’s Hate Crime Task Force originally determined the attack was not “a bias incident” and assigned the case to detectives at the local precinct, the Queens Daily Eagle reported. After days of public pressure and news reports, police said that investigators had learned new information and determined the attack “may have been motivated by the victim’s religious beliefs,” according to the Eagle.
Leon was arraigned Thursday on charges of second-degree assault as a hate crime, aggravated harassment in the second degree and endangering the welfare of a child. DeJesus was previously charged with assault as a hate crime, aggravated harassment, endangering the welfare of a child and disorderly conduct, prosecutors said. If convicted, they both face up to 15 years in prison.
