Nassau County DA: East Meadow man indicted in April antisemitic graffiti spree

An East Meadow man, arrested and charged in April after he allegedly spray painted antisemitic phrases in front of a hamlet Jewish center and the surrounding area, was indicted Tuesday on multiple related hate crime charges, Nassau County District Attorney Anne T. Donnelly announced.

Sebastian Patino Caceres, 23, pleaded not guilty to a litany of charges before Judge Colin O’Donnell in Nassau County Court in Mineola, including alleged hate crimes, Donnelly said in a news release.

Sometime between April 14 and 15, Donnelly said, Patino Caceres allegedly spray painted "Free Palestine" "outside the front door on the sidewalk" of the Beth-El Jewish Center in East Meadow.

Nassau Police First Squad detectives arrested him on April 16.

"Armed with a can of green spray paint and his bicycle," Donnelly said Patino Caceres allegedly spray painted the message before continuing onto Merrick Avenue, where he scrawled "antisemitic vitriol" on several fences behind homes and "hateful language over a mural of the faces of Israeli hostages taken by Hamas."

Far from being just graffiti, "it is an act of hate," Donnelly said. "One that is meant to instill fear in our Jewish communities. But Nassau County refuses to live in fear."

Patino Caceres' defense attorney, James Lynch of the Legal Aid Society of Nassau County, declined to comment when reached by phone Tuesday.

State lawmakers have proposed legislation that would include putting certain types of graffiti on the list of offenses eligible for hate crime charges.

New York State defines a hate crime as one that targets a person, group or property because of bias against a list of "protected" characteristics including race, religion or sexual orientation. The state's Hate Crimes Act steps up penalties for certain specified offenses when they are found to be motivated by bias. There are dozens of such offenses, ranging from assault to criminal possession of a chemical or biological weapon. Hate crime statistics from the FBI for 2022, the latest available year, showed 13,377 offenses nationwide, a nearly 8% jump from 2021.

According to the latest New York State data, police departments in Nassau County reported 61 hate crime incidents in 2022, up from 28 the year before. Suffolk police departments reported 28 such incidents in 2022, unchanged from the year before.

Patino Caceres was arraigned Tuesday on felony charges of third-degree criminal mischief as a hate crime, six counts of fourth-degree criminal mischief as a hate crime and a charge of third-degree criminal mischief. He was additionally arraigned on misdemeanor charges, including six counts of fourth-degree criminal mischief, seven counts of making graffiti and one count of possession of graffiti instruments.

He was released to pretrial services with electronic monitoring and is due back in court on Sept. 13. If convicted, according to Donnelly's office, he faces up to 7 years in prison.