US federal authorities on Monday announced charges against six Pennsylvania men for attacking a Jewish man and conspiring to hide their involvement and mislead investigators.

The case stood out because the investigation gave a rare look at how alleged antisemitic assailants discussed their crime behind the scenes, hid their anti-Jewish animus and conflated Jews and Israel.

The charges stem from a late-night incident in September 2024, when five of the defendants made antisemitic comments, including “Fuck the Jews” and “Fuck Israel,” to a Jewish passerby in the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh, the criminal complaint said.

The man was identifiably Jewish because he was wearing a Star of David pendant outside his shirt, the US Department of Justice said.

The victim stopped to confront the defendants, who made further antisemitic comments, such as “I hate Jews and I hate Israel,” told the victim that he should not be wearing a Star of David, and showed him some of their own necklaces that had Arabic script.

The verbal dispute escalated and two of the defendants, Muhammed Koc, 27, and Omar Alshmari, 28, punched and kicked the victim, splitting his lip and causing other minor injuries.

The other defendants who were at the scene were Abraham Choudhry, 22, Emirhan Arslan, 24, and Ali Alkhaleel, 19. A sixth defendant, Adeel Piracha, 22, was involved in the cover-up, but was not at the scene. All are residents of the Pittsburgh region.

After the attack, the victim reported the incident to law enforcement and the FBI opened an investigation.

Security cameras recorded part of the incident, and the University of Pittsburgh issued an alert seeking the suspects.

The defendants saw that law enforcement was searching for them, and, over the course of several months, conspired to hide evidence of their involvement in a group chat called “No saving for the love of God” with the other defendants on the social media platform Snapchat.

In the chat, Koc and Alshmari told other defendants in the case that they were the suspects, describing the victim as “the white boy who had the israel chain.”

Alshmari admitted to the attack in other text messages to unnamed defendants, calling the victim a “fucking yahoodi,” using the Arabic term for Jew, and using other slurs.

“An fbi investigation over a busted lip,” he said in one message.

Months later, in January 2025, FBI agents interviewed Koc about the attack. Koc denied being in the area, but after being presented with footage showing him there, he admitted to being present. He falsely said that the victim initiated the attack and that he did not know the victim was Jewish, the criminal complaint said.

Over the next three months, the defendants conspired to align their testimony about the attack in group chats, video calls and text messages, warned each other against discussing the incident on non-encrypted messaging platforms, tried to learn what information investigators had, and lied to the grand jury.

Piracha said, “I’ve been subpoenaed to court what has everyone said so we all on same page,” and Alshmari said at one point, “We need to know everything they talked about.”

Piracha told the group to portray the incident as a “regular fight” and accuse the victim of being drunk and instigating the altercation. Alshamri told him he would deny everything, and Piracha responded, “But they clearly have evidence,” and “It’s worse if yall completely lie.”

After the defendants all received subpoenas, Arslan told the Snapchat group, “We gotta say the same shit.”

Arslan asked Snapchat’s AI chatbot, “What charge is lying in court,” receiving a response explaining perjury, then asked the chatbot what “contempt of court” meant.

Alshmari also sent the other defendants screenshots explaining perjury and images of security cameras in the area of the attack.

He later told the grand jury that he had not witnessed any punches during the incident, did not hit the victim, and did not hear anything about the victim being Jewish, contradicting his statements in the chats.

“Him being Jewish, I think, is absolutely — that’s the last thing…. I have nothing, nothing against Jewish people,” he told the grand jury. He also said the group had not coordinated their stories for the jury.

The other defendants also said they had not heard anything about the victim being Jewish, denied their conversations about the investigation took place, denied there had been any violence, or said they did not remember.

Charges against the defendants include hate crimes, obstructing justice, and conspiring to obstruct justice, with penalties up to 10 years in prison and a fine of $250,000.

A handful of other investigations in recent years have exposed suspects in antisemitic hate crimes deriding Jews in messages to acquaintances.

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antisemitism in the US

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