A woman accused of stabbing two Orthodox Jewish men in Manhattan's Diamond District earlier this month had previously been arrested for attacking a Jewish teenager outside a Brooklyn yeshiva, federal prosecutors revealed Wednesday.
The 32-year-old woman was charged with two federal hate crimes in connection with the October 21 attacks. Prosecutors requested that she remain in custody pending trial, arguing that she poses an ongoing danger to the Jewish community. She faces a maximum combined sentence of 20 years in prison.
In a seven-page submission to US Magistrate Judge Robert Lehrburger in the Southern District of New York, prosecutors detailed a previous encounter involving the suspect and a Jewish teenager on June 18, 2025.
According to the filing, the woman approached the teenager, who was wearing a kippah and tzitzit, outside a Brooklyn yeshiva, took his cellphone and threw it to the ground.
Police body-camera footage reportedly recorded the suspect acknowledging that she had thrown the phone. She claimed that the teenager and his friends had laughed at her and filmed her.
The suspect told officers she had visited the yeshiva, which she described as a “church," while looking for someone she believed had assaulted her friend's children in Los Angeles.
Prosecutors said she repeatedly referred to “the Jewish community" during the encounter and expressed frustration over how the teenagers allegedly responded when she questioned them about the individual she was seeking.
The filing stated that the suspect was arrested following the incident and “provided law enforcement agents with a Russian passport." It did not specify the outcome of that case.
Federal prosecutors cited the earlier arrest as evidence of a broader pattern of targeting “any observably Jewish person who crosses her path."
The October 21 attacks occurred in Manhattan's Diamond District, where the suspect allegedly approached two Orthodox Jewish men and stabbed them with a sharp object, believed to have been a needle.
Both victims wore kippahs. According to the Justice Department, one victim, “who has a beard, was wearing attire traditionally worn by Orthodox Jewish men, including a black hat, a black suit, a white shirt and tzitzit."
One of the men suffered a bleeding wound and was transported to a hospital, where he received treatment before being released later that day. The second sustained a small cut to his forearm.
Prosecutors said the suspect also approached a third individual and asked whether he was Jewish. When the man replied that he was Muslim, she apologized and fled.
Surveillance footage appeared to show the attacker approaching one of the Jewish victims from behind, stabbing him and escaping.
Investigators have not recovered the suspected weapon and have been unable to determine whether it contained any substance.
The suspect was arrested on October 24, three days after the stabbings, for a transit violation in Brooklyn. Prosecutors said she appeared to be wearing the same jacket visible in surveillance footage of the Manhattan attack.
When officers requested her address, she reportedly provided a Brooklyn location that investigators later determined did not exist.
She was initially charged in state court and detained at Rikers Island after failing to post bail. She was transferred into federal custody Wednesday.
The case comes amid a series of attacks targeting Jewish New Yorkers.
In September, a 48-year-old man was arrested on hate crime charges after allegedly chasing a 24-year-old Jewish man through Brooklyn with a knife while shouting Nazi slogans. The victim escaped into his home as the suspect continued making threats.
Earlier that month, a 14-year-old Jewish boy suffered a stab wound to his hand during an altercation inside a Borough Park synagogue. Police arrested a 22-year-old suspect.
In August, a man disrupted Shabbat services at Manhattan's Central Synagogue, injuring a worshipper and assaulting a security officer. He was subsequently charged with hate crimes.
NYPD figures released earlier this month showed that 245 of the 463 confirmed hate crimes recorded in New York City between January and September 2026 targeted Jews, representing approximately 53% of all incidents.
That figure was up from 242 anti-Jewish hate crimes during the same period in 2025, despite Jews accounting for approximately 10% of the city's population.