A 21-year-old former student at Cornell University pleaded guilty on Wednesday to antisemitic death threats against Jewish students.
Patrick Dai admitted that he wrote on a message board on Oct. 28 and Oct. 29 that he was going to “shoot up” a dining hall at Cornell that “caters predominantly to kosher diets and is next to the Cornell Jewish Center that provides residential accommodations for students,” per the U.S. Justice Department.
Dai also fessed up to posting that he would “bomb [a] Jewish house,” “stab” and “slit the throat” of Jewish men on campus, rape Jewish women and throw them off a cliff, behead Jewish babies and “bring an assault rifle to campus and shoot all you pig Jews,” according to the Justice Department.
“This defendant is being held accountable for vile, abhorrent, antisemitic threats of violence levied against members of the Cornell University Jewish community,” stated Kristen Clarke, assistant attorney general at the U.S. Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division.
“In the elevated threat environment that we have seen since Oct. 7, we have been vigilant and stand ready to hold perpetrators of hate crimes accountable,” Clarke said. “Antisemitic threats of violence are unacceptable in our society, and we will not tolerate this conduct.”
Dai “used the Internet to make horrific threats to kill and injure Jewish students attending Cornell University. The federal felony conviction he sustains today underscores that those who break the law by making violent threats will be found and prosecuted, even if they attempt to hide by posting anonymously,” said Carla Freedman, U.S. attorney for the Northern District of New York.
“His guilty plea today means he will be held accountable for his threats against members of his own Cornell University community,” Freedman added.
Dai is scheduled to be sentenced on Aug. 12, when he will face up to “five years in prison, a fine of up to $250,000, restitution to victims and a maximum of three years of supervised release,” according to the Justice Department.
