Bergen County Man Sent 41 Racist, Anti-Semitic Letters To Schools, People: Prosecutors

BERGEN COUNTY, NJ — A Bergen County man who was once imprisoned for mailing hateful messages will go back to jail for sending 41 more letters that contained racist, anti-Semitic, and anti-Muslim messages to schools, synagogues, and people, prosecutors say.

Nikolay Levinson, 41, of Palisades Park sent the letters in Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Bronx, and the greater New York City area, said Damian Williams, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, on Thursday.

Levinson was sentenced to 26 months in prison after pleading guilty before U.S. District Judge Edgardo Ramos.

U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said: “Nikolay Levinson sent vile racist, anti-Semitic, and anti-Muslim threats for the sole purpose of instilling fear in innocent members of our community. This sentence should serve as a reminder that we will never stop protecting the community from such disturbing, hateful conduct.”

According to the Indictment, other public filings, and statements made in court:

From June through November 2022, shortly after his release from prison for similar offenses, Levinson mailed six threatening letters to five victims in the Bronx, Manhattan, and Brooklyn, New York.

He also sent at least 35 other anonymous, threatening, hateful, racist, anti-Semitic, and anti-Muslim letters to victims in the greater New York City area, prosecutors said Thursday.

"Levinson sent the letters, which often contained racial epithets and Nazi imagery, to businesses, schools, synagogues, and individuals," says a release.

In addition to the prison term, Levinson was sentenced to three years of supervised release.

Williams praised the outstanding investigative work of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the New York City Police Department.

The case was prosecuted by the Office’s White Plains Division and Civil Rights Unit in the Criminal Division. Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey C. Coffman was in charge of the prosecution.