Dan Sohail, 36, of Carteret, New Jersey, was sentenced on Wednesday, July 30, 2026, by US district judge Eric Vitaliano in federal court in Brooklyn for ramming his car into the Chabad-Lubavitch headquarters in Brooklyn earlier this year. Sohail pleaded guilty in May to damaging religious property and had already spent about six months in custody.

The incident occurred on January 28, 2026, when Sohail drove his vehicle into the synagogue multiple times. In addition to the sentence of time served plus seven days, the judge ordered Sohail to pay more than $19,000 in restitution.

Courthouse News reported that Sohail must also undergo mandatory mental health treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder and a personality disorder. Sohail’s attorneys stated in a letter submitted before sentencing that he had “desperately sought belonging and understanding through his exploration of Judaism” and that, “gripped by mental illness, Mr Sohail irrationally drove his vehicle into the Chabad Headquarters – home of an entity that had welcomed and embraced him, and in which he had sought acceptance.”

Federal prosecutors had urged the court to impose a longer sentence of 14 months’ imprisonment, emphasizing the visibility of the Jewish institution and the surge in anti-Jewish crimes in the city. They wrote, “The Court’s sentence should send a clear message that attacks on religious people and institutions will be met with stiff punishment.”

However, Judge Vitaliano criticized the Justice Department for seeking a harsher sentence than guidelines recommend and emphasized that Sohail was charged with a property crime, not a hate crime.

Sources