Mohammed Othman was sentenced to 5.5 years in prison for pepper spraying and participating in a callous and unprovoked gang assault on a Jewish man, Joseph Borgen, at New York State Supreme Court on Wednesday. The sentence was longer than prosecutors had recommended.

“I apologize from the bottom of my heart to Joseph Borgen, his family and his community,” Othman said, speaking in a calm voice before the judge passed the sentence. “I promise to become a better person.” 

26-year-old Othman pleaded guilty to second degree assault as a hate crime in October. He is the fourth of five men to be sentenced for beating Mr. Borgen near Times Square in May 2021 in an attack that was caught on video and went viral. 

Mr. Borgen, who is 29 years old and wears a yarmulke, was on his way to a pro-Israel rally, during an extensive outbreak of violence in the Middle East between Israel and Hamas. 

After he stepped out of the subway, a few blocks away from the rally, he suddenly found himself surrounded by a group of at least five young men and a minor. 

“Before I could even react,” Mr. Borgen told the court in his victim impact statement last month, the young men beat him to the ground, pepper sprayed and hit him with metal crutches, while calling him a “dirty Jew”  and a “filthy Jew,” and telling him, “Hamas will kill you” and “go back to Israel.” 

Mr. Borgen said he feared he was “potentially going to die.” Thankfully, the New York Police Department arrived, broke up the scene and took him to the hospital. He suffered a concussion, psychological trauma and an injury in his right wrist, which will need additional surgery and still causes him pain.  

On Wednesday, Assistant District Attorney Jonathon Junig reminded the court that Othman pepper-sprayed Mr. Borgen three times, and also pepper-sprayed an innocent bystander, who tried to intervene and help the victim. 

Furthermore, text messages on Othman’s phone proved that the hate crime had been planned. Mr. Junig recommended a five year prison sentence plus five years of post-release supervision.

The defense attorney, Leo Duvalle, argued that his client had no criminal record, and that he had expressed remorse for his actions on this “disastrous day.” Mr. Duvalle also spoke of the character letters he submitted to the judge, written by relatives, friends and former employers.

The letters showed a person who is “kind, compassionate, thoughtful, considerate, curious,” Mr. Duvalle told the court. Jewish people had also sent in letters. Othman has Jewish friends, “he worked for Jewish businesses, and they all said he had never shown any hatred toward Jews.” 

“You are sentencing a good person,” Mr. Duvalle stressed, and asked the judge for the minimum sentence. “I think it will promote integrity,” he added. “Three-and-a-half years is a long time for anybody.” 

For his charge, Othman faced a minimum of three-and-a-half, and a maximum of fifteen years in prison, according to the Manhattan District Attorney’s office. 

“Pepper spray is not a good thing,” the defense attorney concluded, “but he didn’t kick him in the head, he didn’t participate in the beating of this young man.” 

“I have read the letters,” Judge Felicia Mennin responded, noting that Othman seemed to have had “normal and kind interactions with people of Jewish faith for years,” and she agreed that the evidence of the letters must be considered.    

“People are more than the worst thing they have ever done in their life,” the judge said, quoting Helen Prejean, the Catholic nun and author of the best-selling book “Dead Man Walking.” The judge had used the same quote last month, when she sentenced another assailant in Mr. Borgen’s dreadful attack to seven years in prison. She attempted, so it seemed, to console the young men, before sending them to prison for a significant amount of time.     

Then the judge laid out the reasons for her ruling. The attack had been planned. Othman had participated in a group chat that explicitly set the goal to stop pro-Israel demonstrators from having a peaceful demonstration. 

Video footage shows Othman and the others arriving in a pick-up-truck. Othman is seen throwing a lit firecracker into a crowd, causing an innocent woman to suffer second degree burns. And although Othman was not being charged for that, the judge said, “the court may take that into consideration.” 

The video further shows how Mr. Borgen is being chased, brought to the ground, and how Othman sprays him with pepper spray. Then Othman retreats, and appears again, pepper-spraying Mr. Borgen again, and then a third time. 

“He had three opportunities to disengage,” the judge continued. She found that although the act of pepper spraying someone is not as bad as stomping on the victim’s head, it still shows an intent to cause harm “based on the religion of this person.” 

Judge Mennin added six months to the prosecution’s request, leaving Othman with a total of five and half years in prison plus five years of post-release supervision. She explained that the gravity of hate crimes played a role in her decision, and the “importance of preventing them from happening again.” 

As Othman was led out of the courtroom in handcuffs, a young woman in the pews began to cry. She was sitting next to four other people who had come in support of the defendant. A young man next to her stood up and attempted to rush out. But a court officer told him to wait, because the attorneys had not left yet.  

The small and harmless commotion was quickly deescalated by the numerous court officers present inside the courtroom. It was nothing compared to last month’s tumultuous scene, when another attacker, Mahmoud Musa, received by far the harshest sentence of them all, seven years. 

One of Musa’s supporters had jumped up, triggering other supporters to rise as well. Court officers immediately took the emotionally charged group outside. In the hallway, one of the supporters yelled that the judge was “racist.” Family and friends of Mr. Borgen, as well as the press, waited twenty minutes inside the courtroom until the hallway was cleared.       

There were fewer supporters from both sides present at Wednesday’s sentencing. Mr. Borgen still had a large crowd, filling almost an entire side of the pews with friends and family. 

In the elevator, the Sun spoke to a man who knew Mr. Borgen’s grandparents as neighbors at Forest Hills, Queens. He wore a “Justice for Joey” baseball cap, as did several other supporters, and introduced himself as Sheldon Fine, “F-I-N-E, like everything should be.” 

Mr. Fine told the Sun he had come to court, because this is an issue that cannot be ignored. “It was an attack on the entire Jewish community,” and an even bigger issue, because it “was an assault on someone because of his religion.” 

As the vice chair of the Upper West Side Council of Orthodox Jewish Organizations, or West Side Cojo, Mr. Fine had personally been in touch with Manhattan’s District Attorney, Alvin Bragg. 

“We had a meeting with the West Side Jewish community, because that’s where I live. He was very responsive to this and to another case,” Mr. Fine said, recalling that “initially, there were problems.” But the community was able to bring them up with Mr. Bragg. “He took our concerns seriously, and he reacted,” he said. 

Mr. Bragg was widely criticized after one of the attackers, Waseem Awawdeh, who hit Mr. Borgen three times in the back with a metal crutch, was offered a plea deal with a six months prison sentence. Awawdeh ended up with a sentence of 18 months. 

Faisal Elezzi, who threw two punches at Borgen, had the chance to avoid going to prison. He was offered three years of probation including attending an anti-bias program. But shortly before the judge sentenced him, Elezzi was arrested at Staten Island for allegedly running an illegal smoke shop and possessing several pounds of marijuana. Though the new charges were dropped, Judge Mennin added 60 days of prison time onto his three-year probation period.

Besides the minor, whose case is being handled in Family Court, there is one more attacker, Mohammed Said Othman, still awaiting sentencing. He is currently waiting at Rikers Island to be sentenced on January 31, 2024.    

Outside the courthouse, Mr. Borgen told the Sun that he felt “less stressed” about the final sentencing. 

“His sentence is a predetermined sentence of three years, barring anything unforeseen,” he said.  

After enduring two-and-a-half years of court proceedings, requiring constant reiteration of the traumatic incident, Mr. Borgen sighed. “I feel a sense of relief,” he said. “The sentences were strong, firm sentences and they send a positive message to anyone intending to commit a hate crime against a Jewish person, or any minority group in this city, or in the state, or across the world.” 

He added that his wrist still bothers him. “It hurts right now,” he smiled. “But I did play basketball last night.”  

As he walked off with his family, he turned back and added, “It’s all relative.  Anytime I want to complain, I think about Israel, what people are going through there, the hostages, the families, the victims. That gives you a different perspective.”