Man accused of harassing New York City halal cart worker has hate crime charges dismissed
NEW YORK -- The man accused of harassing a halal cart worker in Manhattan has reached a deal to have hate crime charges dismissed.
Stuart Seldowitz was arrested in November after several cell phone videos went viral.
Police say the former United States National Security official went on hateful rants against a Muslim vendor on the Upper East Side.
The vendor says Seldowitz approached the cart and asked him where he was from, then began harassing him when he said he was from Egypt.
Videos captured Seldowitz saying, "I'm gonna put big signs here that say, 'This guy believes in Hamas," "You're a terrorist, you support terrorism," and "If we killed 4,000 Palestinian kids, you know what, it wasn't enough."
Wednesday in court, Seldowitz was ordered to attend 26 weeks of anti-bias training in return for having the case dismissed.
The New York chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations released a statement saying, "The sweetheart deal he received from the Manhattan DA's office is a shameful affront of our justice system and wholly unfitting of his actions."