SUNNY ISLES BEACH, FLA. (WSVN) - A victim of an alleged threat against him is speaking out after police arrested a 39-year-old man who is accused of targeting members of the Jewish community multiple times.
“It was scary,” said 59-year-old Herve Karsenty.
Karsenty said he had a frightening encounter with the suspect on Friday night before the suspect walked away with something in his hands.
“He was very aggressive, he had something in the hand, I don’t know what, some kind of knife. He was screaming ‘Jew’ or something like that,” said Karsenty.
According to police, Mohammad Ali Alsaccal had a silver pen in his hand when he was arrested on Saturday.
Police said the suspect is a Jordanian citizen who has been living in Sunny Isles Beach.
Alsaccal is accused of aiming hate and anger at Jewish people at Sunny Isles Beach and threatening to hurt them.
“He was approaching groups of Jewish community members that were either on their way to worship or coming back from worship and he went ahead and he pulled some type of silver sharp object and basically, in many of the cases, he went ahead and charged at them, telling them that their the devil, that Jews must die,” said Sunny Isles Beach Police Sgt. Melissa Porro.
Police said Alsaccal threatened victims who were wearing traditional Orthodox Jewish clothing on at least three separate occasions.
The three incidents occurred not far from synagogues on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.
“When he committed the final and last incident, our officers located him immediately and placed him under arrest and he’s now sitting in jail without bond,” said Porro.
Alsaccal appeared in court on Sunday where he was charged with several counts of attempted aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and harassment related to ethnic heritage.
“Harass or intimidate with a credible threat,” said the judge.
“The defendant did state: ‘Jews are the devil and all Jews must die,'” said a court member.
According to the arrest report, which were read aloud in court, Alsaccal appeared to deny the allegations.
But witnesses who saw the suspect on the streets of Sunny Isles Beach said the police arrested the right guy.
Karsenty said he is relieved that the man is behind bars.
“They did a very good job because the police come to the synagogue. They showed us a picture and I recognized right away that it was him,” said Karsenty.
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