Federal Hate Crime Charges Filed in Central Synagogue Assault
Federal prosecutors in Manhattan have charged Larry Montes, a 46-year-old Bronx resident, with two counts of hate crimes and one count of damage to religious property causing bodily injury, after an assault on a woman and a security guard during Shabbat services at Central Synagogue on August 14. Manhattan US attorney Jamie McDonald announced the charges on August 18. Montes was already facing state-level hate crime charges when the federal indictment was unsealed.
The incident began shortly after 6 p.m. on Thursday, August 14, as Shabbat services — the weekly Jewish day of rest that begins at sundown on Friday — were getting underway at Central Synagogue, a prominent Reform congregation on Manhattan's East Side. According to the criminal complaint, Montes stood up roughly nine minutes into the service and shouted, "You know who the fuck I am!" He then approached the bimah (the raised platform from which Torah readings take place) and struck two ceremonial silver candlesticks with gold accents, causing them to fall. Both candlestick bases were bent and some accents were damaged, prosecutors said. The disruption was visible on the synagogue's livestream of the service.
As security personnel tried to remove Montes, he struck a 63-year-old woman, who suffered a cut lip and a forearm injury. Montes also spat at and head-butted a member of the synagogue's security team and damaged synagogue property. An NYPD sergeant assigned to Central Synagogue intervened and arrested Montes at the scene. Police commissioner Jessica Tisch publicly thanked the sergeant afterward. Montes made his first appearance before a judge in the days that followed.
The criminal complaint details a series of statements Montes allegedly made during the incident and in a post-arrest interview. He told the synagogue's head of security, "fuck you people" and "I don't fuck with you people." He allegedly used a racial slur against the Black security team member he head-butted. In his post-arrest interview, Montes told police he felt disrespected during the service and "got up, start[ed] some shit, [and] smacked somebody around." He also allegedly said, "fuck the Jews … it's racial" and "I will never affiliate with no filthy fucking synagogues, either here or in fucking Israel." Montes further told police his actions were "all a racial thing" and "all religious motivated," and said, "I have racial issues."
The federal charges add a second prosecutorial track to a case that already drew state-level attention. NBC News reported on August 16 that hate crime charges had been filed against Montes for disrupting Shabbat services and striking two people. The federal charges fall under the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, a federal law that requires prosecutors to prove the defendant targeted victims specifically because of their actual or perceived religion or race. Montes's own statements, as recounted in the criminal complaint, appear to be what prosecutors are using to satisfy that requirement directly.
The broader context here is the layered federal-state response to bias-motivated violence at houses of worship. When both the state and federal governments bring charges for the same underlying conduct, the state case typically proceeds first, with the federal indictment serving as a backstop — a parallel pathway if state proceedings stall or produce outcomes prosecutors consider insufficient. Think of it as a belt-and-suspenders approach: two separate legal systems each holding the defendant accountable for the same act. This dual-track approach also reflects the political and institutional stakes that attacks on religious institutions carry, particularly in a city where the NYPD maintains dedicated personnel at major synagogues, as the presence of the sergeant at Central Synagogue makes clear. The livestream factor adds an evidentiary dimension as well: the assault was captured on a publicly accessible broadcast, which could prove significant if the case goes to trial.
