Rockland Man Sentenced For Anti-Semitic Harassment In CT

BLAUVELT, NY — A Blauvelt man was sentenced Wednesday to 36 months of imprisonment, followed by three years of supervised release, for making repeated anti-Semitic death threats to a Jewish resident of Stratford, Connecticut whom he met through his mom.

Christopher Rascoll, 49, threatened a woman through text messages, voicemails and Facebook posts for seven months, prosecutors said. The woman lived in the same housing community as his mother, and he met her at the complex's pool, The Journal News reported.

In text messages and voicemails, from November 2019 through June 2020, Rascoll threatened to murder or seriously injure the victim. He also threatened to blow up the victim’s house and car, Leonard C Boyle, Acting United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut, and David Sundberg, Special Agent in Charge of the New Haven Division of the Federal Bureau of Investigation said in an announcement about the sentence.

For example, on Dec. 23, 2019, the first day of Hannukah, Rascoll sent the victim a message that included the words “Suns about to go down. It would be a shame if your house were used to light the menorah. Or turned in a gas chamber.” On April 8, 2020, the first day of Passover, Rascoll wrote “I’m going to kill you. You better be gone because if you’re in [the victim’s housing community] Easter weekend I’m going to stick you in an oven. Or I’m going to shoot you . . . . I should send you to a concentration camp.”

Only a few hours before he was located and arrested by the FBI June 26, 2020, Rascoll left the victim a voicemail message stating, “The police are not going to help you. The courts are not going to help you. . . . I will kill you.”

The FBI’s investigation also identified several other people who had been threatened and harassed by Rascoll, prosecutors said.

“For seven months, this defendant’s hate-fueled threats made the victim in fear for her life, and she continues to suffer lingering effects of his vicious behavior,” said Acting U.S. Attorney Boyle. “In addition to protecting the victim, this sentence sends an appropriate message that these crimes cannot be tolerated and will result in a lengthy prison term.”

“The courts have spoken very clearly: Hate crimes will not be tolerated and the consequences will be significant.” said FBI Special Agent in Charge Sundberg. “We at the FBI, alongside our law enforcement partners, will continue to address threats based on race, religion, nationality or gender in order to end crimes of hate in our communities.”

Rascoll has been detained since his arrest on June 26, 2020. He pleaded guilty April 27 to one count of interference with the right to fair housing, a hate crime, and one count of sending threatening communications.

The judge also ordered Rascoll to serve the first three months of his supervised release in a residential reentry center.

This matter was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation with assistance from the Stratford Police Department. The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Sarala V. Nagala and Amanda S. Oakes.

In an unrelated incident, Rascoll was arrested in Orangetown in November 2019 while sitting in a car reported stolen out of Stratford, on active warrants from both Clarkstown and Orangetown, the Daily Voice reported.