Grafton Thomas, the man accused of the machete attack during a Hanukkah celebration in Rockland County in 2019 has once again been found unfit to stand trial.
According to the New York Daily News, that decision was handed down in court filings on Wednesday.
The government conceded in a Manhattan Federal Court letter that eight months of mental health evaluations and treatment of Thomas had been unsuccessful.
“There currently is not a substantial probability that in the foreseeable future the defendant will attain the capacity to permit the proceedings to go forward,” Assistant US Attorney Lindsey Keenan wrote.
Thomas, now 38, was charged in the December 28, 2019 attack that left five people wounded. The most critically injured victim, Josef Neumann, 72, died of his wounds in late March of 2020, three months after the attack.
Federal prosecutors said Thomas targeted congregants celebrating the seventh night of Hanukkah at the Monsey home of Rabbi Chaim Rottenberg because of their Jewish faith.
Thomas has pleaded not guilty to attempted murder and other charges. He had previously been declared unfit to stand trial in April of 2020.
Prosecutors charged Thomas with federal hate crimes, citing anti-Semitic ramblings in his journal. Thomas’ attorney, Michael Sussman, insisted Thomas had long struggled with severe mental illness.
“The government has now agreed with the position I took two days after the event — that the man is deranged. It took a long time to get here,” Sussman told the Daily News.
If Judge Cathy Seibel accepts the findings of mental health experts, the charges against Thomas will be dismissed and he will be confined to a state-run institution, the report noted.
The lawyer said that his phone conversations with Thomas, who is being held at specialized Bureau of Prisons medical facility in Springfield, Missouri, have been very difficult. Thomas is unable to give a simple answer to whether he’d like to attend a court hearing, Sussman said.
(Arutz Sheva’s North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Arutz Sheva articles, however, is Israeli time.)
