Matthew Mahrer Twenty-two years old, and Christopher Brown Twenty-one years old who allegedly Made threats against synagogues (a Jewish assembly or house of worship) were arrested last Friday night.
A bulletin was sent out to law enforcement seeking the men for questioning after investigators uncovered a developing threat to the Jewish community and swiftly worked to identify those behind it.
“Yesterday morning, they detected an individual on Twitter who was talking about carrying out violent attacks on the Jewish synagogue non-specific in New York. We also got threats from a few other organizations as well,” said Mitchell Silber, executive director of the Community Security Initiative. The FBI and NYPD were promptly alerted, hours later leading to those arrests.
Matthew Mahrer, of the upper west side, and Christopher Brown, of Aquebogue, were taken into custody at Penn Station around 11:30 p.m.
According to two MTA Police officers on patrol in Penn Station last Friday night, the suspects were armed with several weapons, including an 8-inch military knife, a handgun (Glock-17)and a high-capacity magazine and nazi armbands.
“This could have been a Pittsburg Tree of life situation, this could have been a Buffalo Tops supermarket type of situation, and thankfully it was averted,” Silber said.
To better protect the Jewish community, the CSI was put in place by the UJA Federation and Jewish Community Relations Council of New York in the wake of such attacks in recent years. Their team of experts scour the internet in search of threats with the potential to be enacted before.
“It’s a horrifying development to think that his individual who was armed and could have done incredible damage was walking the streets. Thankfully, law enforcement stepped in quickly and was able to apprehend them before anybody was hurt,” said Scott Richman, Anti-Defamation League regional director of New York and New Jersey.
Co-founder and CEO of StandWithUs an educational organization that fights antisemitism, Roz Rothstein said;
“Everybody I’m sure that knows the story is grateful to NYPD for their incredible vigilance and their great, great work … That this happened is unfortunately not a big surprise. We’re seeing a rise in antisemitism, and a rise in attacks, especially in New York and also around the world. So we need to be vigilant,”
Christopher Brown faced a judge Sunday morning. He gave a statement to police he admitted to being a white supremacist and an antisemitic, and that he travelled to Pennsylvania with Matthew Mahrer to illegally buy a handgun from a friend.
“My brother [Christopher Brown] would never hurt anybody. He would hurt himself before hurting anybody else,” his sister Kayla Brown said in an interview conducted with his family by CBS2, she added, “He’s not a bad person. He’s just very sick, you know, and he needs help.”
“I really wanna try and talk with him and tell him, ‘Listen, you need to get help. It’s gone too far. You need help. You’re hurting yourself and others and everyone out there that cares about you,'” Kayla Brown said.
The family also says that Brown is schizophrenic and that they are hoping he gets the mental help he needs. Brown’s defense attorney says he worked at an animal shelter and has no criminal record. Brown is being charged with illegal possession of a weapon, terroristic threat, and aggravated harassment.
Mahrer was arraigned around midnight and is charged with criminal possession of a weapon. The man arrested for intention to commit an anti-Semitic crime himself is himself Jewish and the grandchild of a 93-year-old Holocaust survivor. Mahrer too had no criminal records and his parents had cooperated with the cops. Before moving in with his parents a year ago, Mahrer had spent time in homeless shelters.
“Based on that, judge, my client should not be implicated in anything involving hatred towards his own people and his own religion,” Mahrer’s defence attorney, Brandon Freycinet said.
“The parents of this defendant alerted police officers to the existence of a firearm within the backpack of the defendant inside the defendant’s apartment,” said Assistant District Attorney, Emilio Hernandez. The prosecutors also claimed that the pair left the firearm in a backpack in the apartment after learning that the police were looking for them.
“He’s not what they are saying he is,” his mom told The Post outside the court when asked to comment. His father declined to comment.
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