FBI agents. Photo: Wiki Commons.

The US Attorney’s Office, District of Connecticut, announced Wednesday that a New York man had been sentenced to three years in prison for making a series of violent antisemitic threats against a Jewish woman.

A Department of Justice statement said that Christopher Rascoll, 39, began his campaign of harassment in Nov. 2019, repeatedly threatening the Stratford, Connecticut resident via antisemitic text messages, voicemails and Facebook posts.

Among the messages was one sent on Hanukkah that said, “Suns about to go down. It would be a shame if your house were used to light the menorah. Or turned in a gas chamber.”

Another came on the first day of Passover, telling the woman not to be home on Easter because “I’m going to stick you in an oven. Or I’m going to shoot you. … I should send you to a concentration camp.”

“The police are not going to help you. The courts are not going to help you. … I will kill you,” he wrote on the day of his arrest.

Rascoll was tracked down and arrested by the FBI on June 26, 2020. Following the arrest, he was found to have threatened several other people in a similar manner.

Rascoll pled guilty in April to the hate crime of interference with the right to fair housing, as well as to sending threatening communications.

Leonard C. Boyle, Acting United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut, commented, “For seven months, this defendant’s hate-fueled threats made the victim in fear for her life, and she continues to suffer lingering effects of his vicious behavior.”

“In addition to protecting the victim, this sentence sends an appropriate message that these crimes cannot be tolerated and will result in a lengthy prison term,” he said.

David Sundberg, Special Agent in Charge of the New Haven Division of the FBI, said, “The courts have spoken very clearly:  Hate crimes will not be tolerated and the consequences will be significant.”

“We at the FBI, alongside our law enforcement partners, will continue to address threats based on race, religion, nationality, or gender in order to end crimes of hate in our communities,” he pledged.