Two antisemitic attacks, two weeks apart, two very different legal endings — at least so far. In Albuquerque, a man is sitting in federal custody. In New Haven, a man is out on a $10,000 bond facing state charges. The natural question for anyone watching the Crown Street case: could the feds step in here too?
The short answer is maybe — but the New Mexico case isn’t the clean comparison it looks like at first glance. The two cases turn on a difference that matters a lot in federal court: one was an attack on a building, the other was an attack on people.
What happened in New Haven
On June 2, around 3:50 p.m., three Jewish men — two of them visibly identifiable by yarmulkes — were standing on the sidewalk on Crown Street when a man started yelling at them from about 20 feet away. According to the arrest warrant, he shouted “get out of my city,” “baby killers,” “go back where you belong,” and asked if they liked “genocide.” He approached, smelling of alcohol, tried to shove a fourth person who intervened, threw a rolled-up newspaper, then pointed at one victim’s yarmulke and slapped it off his head.
Using Real Time Crime Center video — plus a distinctive pink hat and three anonymous tips — New Haven police identified Paul “PJ” Smith, 36, of East Haven. He was arrested June 8 and charged under state law with second-degree intimidation based on bigotry or bias (a felony) and disorderly conduct. He’s been released on bond and hasn’t entered a plea.
What happened in New Mexico
On June 2 — same day — Rex Crofton, 25, allegedly drove to Congregation Albert in Albuquerque and shattered the synagogue’s glass entry doors with a tool, then minutes later drove to the Jewish Community Center and battered the front doors with a crowbar-like wrecking bar before a security guard pepper-sprayed him through his car window. He allegedly texted a friend bragging he’d “hit two synagogues in 5 minutes” and said he’d love to kill any cop who intervened. A search turned up the wrecking bar, a revolver, high-capacity magazines, a machete, brass knuckles, and a torn Ukrainian flag defaced with a swastika.
Crofton was charged federally with damage to religious property and faces up to three years.
The legal difference that drives everything
Here’s the crux. The federal charge in New Mexico is almost certainly 18 U.S.C. § 247 — the Church Arson Prevention Act — which makes it a federal crime to intentionally deface, damage, or destroy religious real property because of its religious character, where the conduct affects interstate commerce. Crofton’s case fits that statute like a glove: he physically attacked two religious buildings. The property damage is the federal offense.
New Haven has no property damage. Smith allegedly attacked people — verbal abuse and slapping a yarmulke off a man’s head. That’s not a § 247 case. If the feds wanted in, they’d be looking at a different statute, most likely:
- 18 U.S.C. § 249, the Matthew Shepard / James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, which covers willfully causing — or attempting to cause — bodily injury because of religion. The hitch: knocking a hat off someone’s head is a long way from “bodily injury.” A creative prosecutor might frame the slap as an attempt, but it’s a stretch on these facts.
- 18 U.S.C. § 245, which covers interfering with someone by force because of religion and because they were engaged in a federally protected activity. The “protected activity” requirement is a real hurdle on a random sidewalk encounter.
In plain terms: the New Mexico conduct walked straight into the property-damage statute. The New Haven conduct doesn’t have an obvious federal home, because the federal hate-crime laws aimed at people generally want bodily injury, and this case — as charged — doesn’t have it.
Two more things the feds weigh
Even where a statute fits, federal prosecution of a hate crime isn’t automatic. Two practical filters:
The DOJ certification requirement. Both § 247 and § 249 require the Attorney General (or a designee) to personally certify in writing that a federal prosecution is “in the public interest and necessary to secure substantial justice.” That’s a deliberate gatekeeping step — DOJ doesn’t federalize every local bias incident, and historically it lets states handle cases the states are equipped to handle.
Whether the state charge is doing the job. Connecticut’s second-degree intimidation based on bigotry or bias is a felony, and the state recently moved to streamline how it charges hate crimes. When a state statute squarely covers the conduct and carries real penalties, the feds often stand down. Federal involvement tends to show up when the conduct is unusually severe, crosses state lines, involves weapons or property destruction, or when state law somehow can’t reach it — think Crofton’s arsenal and his texts about killing police.
So — will they?
On the facts as they stand, federal charges in New Haven are possible but unlikely. The case is a person-on-person bias confrontation with no property damage and no clear bodily injury, which is exactly the profile state hate-crime law is built to handle — and Connecticut has already charged it as a felony. The New Mexico case is the opposite: property destruction at two religious sites, a weapons cache, and threats against police, which is the profile that pulls federal civil-rights prosecutors off the bench.
The wildcard is severity and what the investigation turns up. If more surfaces about Smith — a pattern, weapons, threats, anything that elevates this beyond a single ugly sidewalk encounter — the calculus could change. But comparing the two cases mostly shows why one went federal and the other, for now, hasn’t: it’s less about how hateful the conduct was and more about which federal statute the conduct actually fits.
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