A “suicidal” Cornell University engineering student who was arrested for threatening to kill Jews on campus pleaded guilty Wednesday after being recently diagnosed with autism, his lawyer told the Post. .
Patrick Dye, 21, was arraigned on one count Wednesday afternoon in Syracuse federal court, and his attorney, Lisa Peebles, told the judge that her client had no intention of exposing Hamas’ atrocities. He said he posted terrible content online in an attempt to be different.
“He did it knowingly, but his motive was not really to scare Jews,” Peebles told the Post by phone after the hearing.
“We were trying to do the opposite: garner sympathy for them and make people think twice about supporting Hamas.”
Mr Peebles claimed that things reached a boiling point for Ms Dye, a former Ivy League junior, after hearing comments by a Cornell University professor who described the Hamas attack as “exhilarating”.
That was around the time of the Gaza hospital bombings, which Hamas falsely tried to blame on Israel.
“He was going through a very difficult time,” Peebles said.
“He had depression, suffered from autism, and although he hadn’t been diagnosed yet, he was feeling unwell, so I came up with the idea to do a post like this.”
In the days that followed, Dye realized his plan had backfired and posted an apology, saying no one should advocate violence, Peebles said.
“This was the wrong decision, he knows it, he feels remorse and regret, he feels terrible for his mother, he’s brought shame on his family. He’s clearly We learned a valuable lesson from this,” the lawyer added.
Dye, who has been in jail since his arrest in October, is scheduled to be sentenced on Aug. 12 for using interstate communications to post threats to kill or injure others.
He could face up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000.
Peebles said federal prosecutors plan to increase Dye’s guideline sentence from 15 months to 21 months because he committed the act as a hate crime.
But Ms Peebles said she plans to fight this because she believes that was not her client’s intention.
Ms. Peebles wants the guideline sentence reduced to 10 to 16 months, and her client will have served approximately 10 months before being sentenced. It’s planned.
Day, from Pittsford, New York, tweeted on October 28 and 29 that “the genocidal fascist Zionist regime will be destroyed” and “before there are more Jewish Hitlers, we will rape all the Jewish women.” He posted a series of disturbing messages, including, “Kill me!”
He also posted that he was going to attack 104 West, a school cafeteria that serves kosher food, adding that he would “slit the throat” of a Jewish man he met on campus.
Dye’s comments came shortly after large amounts of anti-Semitic graffiti appeared on the Ithaca campus.
Dai’s mother, Bing Liu, said after the incident that she was “worried.” [her son’s] Mental health,” he said, adding that the antidepressants he was taking at the time made the situation worse.
Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clark of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said, “This defendant is being held accountable for the vile, abhorrent, anti-Semitic threats of violence levied against members of Cornell University’s Jewish community.” “There is,” he said.
“In institutions of higher education, people should feel safe pursuing educational opportunities.”
