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Machete-wielding assailant from Hanukkah attack Orthodox Jews indicted
by Jordan Hilger, Worthy News Correspondent
(Worthy News) - The perpetrator of a Dec. 28th attack on a rabbi's Hanukkah party in New York was indicted on six counts of attempted murder Friday, up from the five counts he was charged with on the night of the incident.
Grafton Thomas, a former US marine investigators said had ties to the Black Hebrew Israelite movement, stabbed five people at Hasidic rabbi Chaim Rottenberg's home in Monsey, New York, before fleeing to Manhattan, where he was apprehended.
Among the victims was a 72-year-old man who, as a result of a machete wound to the head, is now comatose, partially paralyzed, and breathing on a respirator, making for an additional count of attempted murder.
Thomas was the second Black Hebrew Israelite to target ultra-Orthodox Jews in the New York City metropolitan area, his machete attack over Hanukkah mirroring an earlier assault on a kosher supermarket in Jersey City, New Jersey by a man with a high-powered rifle that killed six people.