NEW YORK (AP) — A woman who police say helped vandalize the homes of the Brooklyn Museum's leaders with red paint during a wave of pro-Palestinian protests has been arrested on hate crimes charges.
Taylor Pelton, 28, was arrested Wednesday on charges of criminal mischief and criminal mischief as a hate crime, police said.
Police say Pelton was one of six people seen on surveillance video vandalizing the homes of the museum's director, Anne Pasternak, and its chief operating officer, Kimberly Trueblood, on June 12. The other people seen in the videos were still being sought Thursday.
Pasternak is Jewish. The activists left the front of her apartment building splattered with paint and a banner calling her a “white-supremacist Zionist.” An inverted red triangle that authorities say is a symbol used by Hamas to identify Israeli military targets was sprayed onto her door, according to court papers.
Pelton was arraigned Wednesday night and released with court supervision, a spokesperson for the Brooklyn district attorney’s office said.
In an email, Pelton’s attorney, Moira Meltzer-Cohen, didn't address the specifics of the charges but criticized “the increasing trend of characterizing Palestine solidarity actions as hate crimes.” She said the willingness of prosecutors “to endorse the rhetorical collapse of Zionist ideology and protected religious identity, in order to criminalize criticism of Israel, signals a troubling departure from the principles on which our legal and political systems rest.”
The paint splashing happened days after hundreds of pro-Palestinians protesters marched to the museum, occupied its lobby, vandalized artworks and hung a “Free Palestine” banner from its roof. Police arrested several dozen people.
The protest group Within Our Lifetime and other organizers of those demonstrations said they targeted the museum because they believed it was “deeply invested in and complicit” in Israel’s military actions in Gaza through its leadership, trustees, corporate sponsors and donors — an accusation museum officials denied.
Many New York City leaders criticized the protests and noted the museum's track record of fighting for the First Amendment rights of artists and occasionally angering conservative critics. As recently as last fall, the museum was accused of tolerating antisemitism after hosting an art fair at which one vendor sold material with the slogans “globalize the intifada” and “river to the sea.”
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who lives near the museum, said at the time in a speech on the Senate floor that the vandalism targeting the museum's leaders was antisemitic.
“This is the face of hatred. Jewish Americans made to feel unsafe in their own home – just because they are Jewish,” he said. “This is not even close to free speech. This is intimidation. It is scapegoating. It is dehumanization.”
Brooklyn Museum officials said in a statement that "it is crucial to distinguish between peaceful protest and criminal acts.”
The officials said the museum’s vision “remains rooted in the belief that art fosters dialogue and mutual understanding among people with diverse experiences and perspectives.”
FILE - The Brooklyn Museum of Art is shown April 13, 2004, in Brooklyn, N.Y. A woman was arrested Wednesday, July 31, 2024, on hate crime charges in the vandalism of the homes of the museum’s leaders during a wave of pro-Palestinian protests. (AP Photo/Dean Cox, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Two people who prosecutors say were motivated by white supremacist ideology have been arrested on charges that they used the social media messaging app Telegram to encourage hate crimes and acts of violence against minorities, government officials and critical infrastructure in the United States, the Justice Department said Monday.
The defendants, identified as Dallas Erin Humber and Matthew Robert Allison, face 15 federal counts in the Eastern District of California, including charges that accuse them of soliciting hate crimes and the murder of federal officials, distributing bombmaking instructions and conspiring to provide material support to terrorists.
Humber, 34, of Elk Grove, California, and Allison, 37, of Boise, Idaho were arrested Friday. Humber pleaded not guilty in a Sacramento courtroom Monday to the charges. Her attorney Noa Oren declined to comment on the case Monday afternoon after the arraignment.
It was not immediately clear if Allison had an attorney who could speak on his behalf.
The indictment accuses the two of leading Terrorgram, a network of channels and group chats on Telegram, and of soliciting followers to attack perceived enemies of white people, including government buildings and energy facilities and “high-value” targets such as politicians.
“Today’s action makes clear that the department will hold perpetrators accountable, including those who hide behind computer screens, in seeking to carry out bias-motivated violence,” Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke, the Justice Department's top civil rights official, said at a news conference.
Their exhortations to commit violence included statements such as “Take Action Now” and “Do your part,” and users who carried out acts to further white supremacism were told they could become known as “Saints,” prosecutors said.
Justice Department officials say the pair used the app to transmit bomb-making instructions and to distribute a list of potential targets for assassination — including a federal judge, a senator and a former U.S. attorney — and to celebrate acts or plots from active Terrorgram users.
Those include the stabbing last month of five people outside a mosque in Turkey and the July arrest of an 18-year-old accused of planning to attack an electrical substation to advance white supremacist views. In the Turkey attack, for instance, prosecutors say the culprit on the morning of the stabbing posted in a group chat: “Come see how much humans I can cleanse.”
A 24-minute documentary that the two had produced, “White Terror," documented and praised some 105 acts of white supremacist violence between 1968 and 2021, according to the indictment.
“The risk and danger they present is extremely serious," said Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen, the Justice Department’s top national security official. He added: “Their reach is as far as the internet because of the platform they’ve created.”
Telegram is a messaging app that allows for one-on-one conversations, group chats and large “channels” that let people broadcast messages to subscribers. Though broadly used as a messaging tool around the world, Telegram has also drawn scrutiny, including a finding from French investigators that the app has been used by Islamic extremists and drug traffickers.
Telegram's founder and CEO, Pavel Durov, was detained by French authorities last month on charges of allowing the platform’s use for criminal activity. Durov responded to the charges with a post last week saying he shouldn’t have been targeted personally and by promising to step up efforts to fight criminality on the app.
He wrote that while Telegram is not “some sort of anarchic paradise,” surging numbers of users have “caused growing pains that made it easier for criminals to abuse our platform.”
Associated Press reporter Trân Nguyễn contributed from Sacramento, California.
FILE - The Department of Justice seals is seen during a news conference at the DOJ office in Washington, May 16, 2023. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File)
