06 February 2008
A man described by police as a neo-Nazi has been charged with vandalizing a Jewish cemetery near Chicago, Illinois. Mariusz Wdziekonski, 21, was arraigned on charges ranging from criminal damage to property to a felony hate crime, the “Chicago Sun-Times” newspaper reported. Wdziekonski, a Polish immigrant who has lived in the United States for four years, is alleged to have painted swastikas and anti-Semitic slurs on 57 headstones in the Westlawn Cemetery last month. Police said Wdziekonski had acknowledged being a member of the neo-Nazi organization known as NSM 88.
The newspaper also reported that in a different case a man had been charged with committing a hate crime after using an anti-Semitic slur while threatening a man with an ice pick. Louis Ranger, 52, of Chicago has a criminal record which includes a 1994 conviction on a hate crime, according to the “Chicago Sun-Times”.
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