Nicholas Malindretos, a 26-year-old man from Clifton, New Jersey, has been charged with the Sunday attack on a Bloomfield synagogue in which a man was videotaped throwing a Molotov cocktail at the building, the CBS New York reports.
Malindretos failed in his attack; the bottle didn’t break. He was identified thanks to a license plate reader that recorded his car at the time of the attack. For his effort, he’s facing federal charges of attempted use of fire to damage and destroy a building used in interstate commerce, which carry a sentence of 5 to 20 years in prison and a fine up to $250,000.
“I would like him to learn from this and to realize that we as a community are not those things that he fears and hates, but rather we are a diverse, loving, open community,” Rabbi Marc Katz said.