Man pleads guilty to anti-Semitic activities in Brooklyn Heights

A man has pleaded guilty to charges that he spray painted swastikas and distributed fliers reading "Kill all Jews" in the Brooklyn Heights neighborhood of New York. Ivaylo Ivanov admitted to committing the hate crimes and also pleaded guilty to possessing a secret arms cache at his home. Prosecutors said on Thursday that the 39-year-old had made a guilty plea to multiple weapons possession and hate crime charges with the understanding that he would be sentenced to 18 years in prison.

Ivanov was arrested in January 2008 after police found an arsenal of pipe bombs and handguns, a sawn off shotgun and a hunting rifle inside his apartment. He consented to a search of his home after he showed up at Long Island College Hospital with a gunshot wound to his hand. He claimed that he had shot himself while cleaning one of the guns. A further investigation revealed that Ivanov had drawn swastikas on the Brooklyn Heights Synagogue and Congregation B’Nai Avraham as well as 20 other locations in the fall of 2007.