North Carolina Man Charged for Threatening Georgia Rabbi Over Antisemitism Law Support
MACON, Ga. (AP) – A North Carolina man has been charged in federal court for sending a threatening postcard to a Georgia rabbi who had publicly supported a new state law that defines antisemitism.
Ariel Collazo Ramos of High Point, North Carolina, faces up to five years in prison if convicted of mailing threatening letters, federal prosecutors in the Middle District of Georgia stated in a news release on Thursday.
Ramos, 31, was indicted by a grand jury last month, according to court documents, and the document was unsealed on Thursday after his detention.
Ramos is accused in the indictment of mailing a postcard to Elizabeth Bahar, the rabbi of Macon’s Temple Beth Israel, in February. According to the accusation, the postcard contained an allusion to the deadly gas used by Nazis to kill over 1 million Jews during WWII, as well as the words “Jews are rats.”
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It was mailed after Bahar spoke before Georgia legislators in January in support of incorporating antisemitism into state law. The initiative, which has since become legislation, intends to assist Georgia prosecutors in identifying hate crimes and acts of illegal discrimination.
It was unclear whether Ramos had an attorney to represent him, and U.S. District Court records did not mention one. According to the indictment, Ramos ran an online company from home, selling “candles, postcards, and other products depicting racial, white nationalist themes.”