Oleksiy Tsyapalo, who is accused of persistently harassing his former employer, calling him a “dirty Jew” and threatening to kill him, is to remain in custody, the Appellate Court of Illinois First District ruled on Monday, upholding a ruling of the Circuit Court of Cook County.
An attorney for Tsyapalo asked the court to release his client, who he said was not only fighting with the former employer—a lawyer and attorney—over money and not threatening in an antisemitic hate crime. The lawyer said that his client could stay with his parents, avoid social media and wear a monitor to protect the alleged victim.
The lawyer also told the court that his client wasn’t dangerous and that “as a Jewish man, standing right next to him, I do not feel any threat from my client.”
The appellate court agreed with the circuit court, citing the defendant’s decision to keep sending messages to the victim, even though the latter blocked his phone number and reported him to the Northbrook Police Department.
Among the messages were “I’m going to make a career of taking your dirty, Jewish, loser-self down, and I can kill you” and “I am ready to kill you,” according to the court.
“The persistent nature of the defendant’s threats to the victim and their escalation even after police involvement undermine any confidence that the defendant would comply with the suggested conditions of release and refrain from targeting the victim again,” the court said.
“Given the defendant’s lack of self-control, his reckless disregard for the victim’s privacy, his repeated use of antisemitic slurs and the escalation of his death threats to the victim, we find nothing erroneous in the circuit court’s conclusion that the defendant posed a real and present safety threat to the victim,” it added.
