c/o Citizen
Raul Morales appeared in person in Manhattan Supreme Court on Tuesday to be arraigned on the grand jury indictment in the July stabbings, and the charges, sealed since the panel voted them in late July, were unsealed at the hearing. The list runs longer than the one prosecutors started with.
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Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg announced the indictment Tuesday against Morales, 51, for the July 23 attacks near West 84th Street and Central Park West and near West 86th Street and Amsterdam Avenue. The indictment charges him with four counts of second-degree attempted murder as a hate crime, two counts of first-degree assault as a hate crime, two counts of attempted first-degree assault as a hate crime and two counts of second-degree assault as a hate crime, according to the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office. When Morales was arraigned on the original complaint in criminal court on July 24, prosecutors listed two attempted murder counts. It’s routine for the counts in a grand jury indictment to differ from the ones in the initial complaint, and for a defendant to be arraigned on updated charges once the case reaches Supreme Court.The bigger shift is in how prosecutors are describing his motive. Every count in the indictment carries a hate crime designation, covering both victims, and the DA’s office says the theory in both attacks is antisemitism. The first man stabbed was a 57-year-old Asian-American man. The second was a 50-year-old Jewish man who was wearing a kippah. NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said in the announcement that Morales attacked the two men “for no other reason than his belief they were Jewish.” Bragg said his office kept investigating after the arrest and “uncovered additional evidence alleging the defendant specifically harbors antisemitic views.” Some of that evidence, according to the office, came through search warrants: text messages recovered from Morales’s phone that prosecutors say contained antisemitic sentiments.
The announcement also filled in details that weren’t public when we first reported the two men were stabbed. Prosecutors say the first victim was walking west on West 84th Street from Central Park West at about 1:31 p.m., wearing a baseball cap, when Morales came up behind him and stabbed him in the back with a knife. Morales allegedly yelled “Allahu Akbar” during the attack and, as he passed a synagogue near West 83rd Street and Central Park West, “Justice for Islam.” The victim arrived at the hospital with the knife still lodged in his back, and it took surgery to remove it. Twelve minutes later, at about 1:43 p.m., Morales allegedly stabbed the second man in the chest with a screwdriver near a second synagogue at West 86th and Amsterdam. That man was treated for a puncture wound. A witness followed Morales to his apartment building near West 89th Street and Amsterdam Avenue and heard him yell “Allahu Akbar” again. Once inside, prosecutors say, he changed his clothes and initially refused to come out before surrendering to police.
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Both men were taken to Mount Sinai Morningside and were expected to survive, and the attacks fell on Tisha B’Av, the Jewish day of mourning. A weekend rally near the scene followed, with much of its anger aimed at Mayor Mamdani, and the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division opened its own review. Morales pleaded not guilty to the original complaint and has been held without bail since July 24. As we noted when the indictment was sealed, the grand jury voted the charges on July 30, and the counts a grand jury returns don’t have to match the complaint. Unsealing the indictment at the Supreme Court arraignment is standard practice. The charges are allegations, and Morales is presumed innocent unless proven guilty.Have a news tip? Send it to us here!
