NYC’s ‘Anti-Semitic Elmo’ Pleads Guilty to Extortion Scheme
by Joshua Levitt
The Times Square Elmo who made headlines for heckling tourists with anti-Semitic rants pleaded guilty this week in a Manhattan court to attempting to extort $2 million from the Girl Scouts, the New York Post reported.
Dan Sandler, 50, pleaded guilty to attempted grand larceny and misdemeanor stalking before Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Robert Stolz as part of plea deal with prosecutors, the Post said, adding that Sandler is expected to be sentenced to a year in prison for each count when he returns to court to learn his fate on October 9.
Sandler sent dozens of harassing emails to a former supervisor at Girl Scout headquarters, where he worked as an administrative temp years earlier, attempting to extort money by threatening to disrupt Girl Scout events, a scam which he claimed he once ran successfully against pharmaceutical company Pfizer.
“I will show up at Girl Scout functions and other places that parents and kids congregate and hold signs, connecting the Girl Scouts with the Cambodian Rape Camp man,” he wrote referring to an earlier crime of his, prosecutors said. Sandler was arrested in Cambodia for running a live-porn website called, “Welcome to the Rape Camp,” prosecutors said.
Last year Sandler was arrested in Times Square, dressed as Sesame Street character Elmo, and screaming, “The Jews are responsible for everything that’s wrong with the world!” and “I hate Jews!” as he begged for tips.