The Justice Department will seek to indict the person accused of killing two Israeli Embassy employees members in Washington, DC, on federal hate crime charges this week, in accordance to sources accustomed to the matter.
The indictment in opposition to Elias Rodriguez is anticipated to embody particular findings for capital punishment, the place the Justice Department signifies it may pursue the death penalty, one of the sources stated.
The charges, if accepted by a grand jury, would place the case as a centerpiece of the Trump Justice Department’s fervent approaches towards each violent crime and focused hate in opposition to the Jewish group.
The division vowed to seek swift and extreme punishment in opposition to Rodriguez, who prosecutors say gunned down Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim as they have been leaving an occasion on the Capitol Jewish Museum in May. Rodriguez allegedly shot dozens of instances because the pair fell to the bottom and as Milgrim, mortally wounded, tried to crawl away.
The grand jury sitting in the DC federal court docket has heard testimony from a number of witnesses, together with acquaintances, household and buddies of Rodriguez, a 3rd particular person accustomed to the case informed NCS. That kind of testimony signifies the prosecutors have been doubtless pursuing for weeks proof that might again up hate crime charges in addition to a capital case, quite than normal gun violence charges, the particular person stated.
Rodriguez is at the moment charged with utilizing a firearm to commit homicide, first-degree homicide, murdering overseas officers, and utilizing a firearm throughout a violent crime. He has not entered a proper plea in court docket.
NCS has reached out to the Justice Department for remark. An lawyer representing Rodriguez declined to remark.
It took prosecutors weeks to nail down proof that they believed was enough to cost Rodriguez with hate crimes, one supply stated, and one other a number of days for leaders contained in the Justice Department to log out on bringing these charges to a grand jury, a second supply informed NCS.
Though world leaders shortly condemned the shootings as a heinous act of antisemitism, convicting a person of hate crimes is tough as prosecutors should show past an affordable doubt that the crimes have been motivated by prejudice in opposition to a person’s “race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, ethnicity, gender or gender identity,” in accordance to the FBI.
In Rodriguez’s case, that signifies that prosecutors would have to show the taking pictures was motivated by antisemitism and not by political disagreements with or hatred towards the state of Israel.
Evidence in the case made public thus far has proved that hurdle could also be tough for prosecutors to clear. In a video taken on the scene, Rodriguez could be heard shouting, “Free, free Palestine.” A letter posted to X after the taking pictures seemingly signed by Rodriguez expressed fury over the “atrocities committed by the Israelis against Palestine” and referenced “armed action” as a legitimate type of protest – one that’s “the only sane thing to do.”
Rodriguez additionally spoke to investigators in the hours after the taking pictures, earlier than he had a lawyer, one of the sources stated. Court data be aware that Rodriguez informed police after his arrest: “I did it for Palestine, I did it for Gaza.”
At the time he was initially arrested, then-acting DC US Attorney Jeanine Pirro stated that the charges have been “initial” and that the homicide can be investigated as each an act of terrorism and a hate crime. Pirro’s handling of the case barely per week into her tenure garnered reward from each high-level DOJ officers and line prosecutors in her workplace, and she has since been confirmed to the submit.
NCS’s Katelyn Polantz contributed to this report.