Donovan Hall, 35, of Mesa, Ariz., was sentenced to 49 months in prison on Thursday for stalking Jews in New York City and sending more than 1,000 threats to murder and rape them, the U.S. Department of Justice stated.
Hall “targeted Jewish victims with a sustained campaign of intimidation, terror and harassment,” stated Jay Clayton, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. “The approximately 1,000 threats he sent to these New Yorkers were alarming and brazen. The prosecution of this case and the sentence imposed make clear that this office will aggressively bring to justice those who perpetrate senseless crimes of hate.”
Over three months, Hall contacted “several” New Yorkers about 1,000 times and “made antisemitic and violent threats to torture, mutilate, rape and murder them and their families,” the Justice Department said. “In particular, starting in August 2024, Hall made dozens of threatening phone calls, many of which were antisemitic in nature, to the Jewish owner of a hotel located in Manhattan, the owner’s family members and hotel staff.”
“During these calls, Hall threatened numerous times to kill the victims,” it said. It added that he “escalated” his threats by “texting photographs of two firearms and a machete to the hotel owner, along with threats to use those weapons to harm the owner and his family.”
Officers found and recovered the two guns, which weren’t registered to Hall and one of which was loaded, and ammunition at his home.
He was sentenced to three years of supervised release after his jail term.
