gprime
March 4th, 2008, 11:16 AM
NEW YORK (AP) -- A former Pace University student who twice threw copies of the Koran into a toilet at the school after disputes with Muslims pleaded guilty Monday to disorderly conduct in connection with the incidents.
Stanislav Shmulevich, 24, pleaded guilty as part of a deal in which he must do 300 hours of community service. He has completed about 80 hours of the service at a hospital, his lawyer said.
Shmulevich, of Brooklyn, admitted he tossed the Muslim holy books into toilets at Pace on Oct. 13, 2006, and Nov. 21, 2006. A criminal complaint says the Koran that was recovered in the October incident "was covered in feces."
In both cases, a teacher found the books in a men's room on the second floor of the school's main building in lower Manhattan.
Muslims consider the Koran a sacred writing that contains the direct word of God, and desecrating it is seen as an offense against God.
Detective Faisal Khan, who prepared the complaint, said Shmulevich told him "he committed the acts out of anger toward a group of Muslim students with whom he had a recent disagreement."
Shmulevich, a business major and immigrant from the former Soviet Union, initially was charged with two counts of criminal mischief as a hate crime. The charge is a felony punishable by up to four years in prison.
His lawyer, Glenn Morak, said he believed the disorderly conduct plea was an appropriate disposition.
"There was no hate crime here," Morak said. "He accepts responsibility, and he is repentant."
Shmulevich, the lawyer said, is no longer at Pace, which has about 14,000 students on its campuses in New York City and Westchester County.
Via Fox New York (http://www.myfoxny.com/myfox/pages/News/Detail?contentId=5928824&version=1&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=TSTY&pageId=3.2.1)
Now, I see there as being one major question: who owned the book? If it was his book, the only issue came from temporary toilet clogging, which is not uncommon anyway. If it was the school's, then there are minor property damage issues. But this should have been a civil case, wherein he was forced to reimburse the cost of the damage done.
The fact that this is being called a hate crime just shows how dumb those laws are. For instance, a case could quite easily be made that the actions he took were a form of political protest, something constitutionally assured to us. When falsely applying the label of a hate crime here, we're inviting efforts to crush free speech.
Finally, I take great issue with the choice of Faisal Khan as the lead detective. The bias is unbelievably apparent. The AMLEOA endorsement and support from terrorist front groups like CAIR (http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=26463_The_Koran_Complaint&only)doesn't help either.
Stanislav Shmulevich, 24, pleaded guilty as part of a deal in which he must do 300 hours of community service. He has completed about 80 hours of the service at a hospital, his lawyer said.
Shmulevich, of Brooklyn, admitted he tossed the Muslim holy books into toilets at Pace on Oct. 13, 2006, and Nov. 21, 2006. A criminal complaint says the Koran that was recovered in the October incident "was covered in feces."
In both cases, a teacher found the books in a men's room on the second floor of the school's main building in lower Manhattan.
Muslims consider the Koran a sacred writing that contains the direct word of God, and desecrating it is seen as an offense against God.
Detective Faisal Khan, who prepared the complaint, said Shmulevich told him "he committed the acts out of anger toward a group of Muslim students with whom he had a recent disagreement."
Shmulevich, a business major and immigrant from the former Soviet Union, initially was charged with two counts of criminal mischief as a hate crime. The charge is a felony punishable by up to four years in prison.
His lawyer, Glenn Morak, said he believed the disorderly conduct plea was an appropriate disposition.
"There was no hate crime here," Morak said. "He accepts responsibility, and he is repentant."
Shmulevich, the lawyer said, is no longer at Pace, which has about 14,000 students on its campuses in New York City and Westchester County.
Via Fox New York (http://www.myfoxny.com/myfox/pages/News/Detail?contentId=5928824&version=1&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=TSTY&pageId=3.2.1)
Now, I see there as being one major question: who owned the book? If it was his book, the only issue came from temporary toilet clogging, which is not uncommon anyway. If it was the school's, then there are minor property damage issues. But this should have been a civil case, wherein he was forced to reimburse the cost of the damage done.
The fact that this is being called a hate crime just shows how dumb those laws are. For instance, a case could quite easily be made that the actions he took were a form of political protest, something constitutionally assured to us. When falsely applying the label of a hate crime here, we're inviting efforts to crush free speech.
Finally, I take great issue with the choice of Faisal Khan as the lead detective. The bias is unbelievably apparent. The AMLEOA endorsement and support from terrorist front groups like CAIR (http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=26463_The_Koran_Complaint&only)doesn't help either.