Dan Sohail, 36, of New Jersey, was sentenced on Wednesday, July 30th, 2026, to six months and one week in jail for ramming his car into the Chabad Lubavitch World Headquarters in Brooklyn earlier this year. The incident, which occurred in January, damaged a side-entrance door of the building.

Sohail pleaded guilty in May to intentionally damaging religious property and was ordered by the Brooklyn federal court to pay $20,000 in restitution. Having already spent six months in custody, Sohail is expected to be released in about a week.

Prosecutors had recommended a 14-month sentence, which would have extended Sohail's incarceration by roughly eight months, but the judge declined this request.

Ahead of sentencing, prosecutors noted that 80 of 146 hate crime incidents across New York City since the start of the year targeted Jewish people and institutions. However, Judge Vitaliano expressed being "somewhat saddened" that the Justice Department sought to influence the sentencing based on the public’s mistaken initial impression that the attack was a hate crime. He stated the government's push for a stricter sentence was partly due to the incident initially being labeled as an "I-hate-the-Jews crime, or, worse, an act-of-terrorism crime."

Court documents revealed that Sohail was battling depression and post-traumatic stress disorder stemming from a traumatic childhood when he carried out the attack. Despite this, he "desperately sought belonging and understanding through his exploration of Judaism," according to Eisner-Grynberg, who submitted the papers. Sohail had also followed recommendations to visit Israel but became erratic and extremely anxious after returning to the U.S.

The New York Police Department and the Department of Justice investigated the incident as a possible hate crime following the attack.

Sources