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Rockland County resident Christopher Rascoll, who has faced criminal charges before, has been charged with making death threats to the Stratford resident last year, beginning on the first day of Hanukkah.
It is alleged that on Dec. 23 last year, Rascoll, of Blauvelt, began sending his victim - who is Jewish - threatening text messages, U.S. Attorney for Connecticut John Durham said.
In several messages, which continued through May this year, Rascoll threatened to "murder or seriously injure the victim by threatening to blow up his house and car," according to Durham.
Durham said that some of Rascoll’s threatening text messages contained anti-Semitic references to the Holocaust.
In December, it is alleged that Rascoll sent a message that included the words “Suns (sic) 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 Passover on Wednesday, April 8, it is further alleged that 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.”
Rascoll, 48, has been charged with one count of interference with the right to fair housing, a hate crime, and two counts of threatening communications, Durham said. Rascoll was arrested in New York City on Friday, June 26, and arraigned in Bridgeport federal court on Monday, June 25.
If convicted, Rascoll could face more than a decade in prison.
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