Creepy Social Media Trail in NYC Hate Crime Case
Laufer, 56, faces hate-crime charges in Queens for the Nov. 18, 2012, attempted murder of a man who had been opening the doors of Flushing’s Masjid al-Saalliheen Mosque for morning prayers.
It took the Queens County District Attorney’s Office nearly eight months to link Laufer to the crime, but their suspect has kept busy on the road to trial.
Death threats that Laufer admitted to sending the leader of the Council on American Islamic-Relations last year landed him in jail for 13 months. A federal judge sentenced him to time served, and he has been free on bail since July 7 with the condition of federal monitoring and outpatient psychiatric treatment.
Prosecutors agreed to the lenient sentence in that case in light of a forensic psychologist’s finding that Laufer has been forcibly institutionalized multiple times in his 45-year struggle with mental illness.
More: Courthouse News Service