Federal Authorities Unseal Charges Against New Jersey Resident Following Targeted Vehicle Attack on Chabad Lubavitch Headquarters

New Jersey resident Dan Sohail faces federal charges for ramming his car into Brooklyn's Chabad headquarters. Read about the three year prison threshold here.

By: AXL Media

Published: Mar 3, 2026, 7:26 AM EST

Source: The information in this article was sourced from News 12 Brooklyn

The Initiation of Federal Legal Proceedings

The United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York unsealed a criminal complaint on Tuesday against Dan Sohail, charging him with the willful damage of religious property. Sohail, a resident of Carteret, New Jersey, had been in state custody since late January following a highly publicized incident at the historic synagogue located at 770 Eastern Parkway. The federal involvement follows an investigation by the FBI’s New York Joint Terrorism Task Force, which determined that the defendant’s actions met the criteria for federal intervention due to the symbolic and religious significance of the targeted location. Sohail made his initial appearance in federal court this afternoon, where the specific details of the complaint were read into the record before a presiding magistrate judge.

A Detailed Account of the January Incident

The federal complaint provides a minute by minute reconstruction of the events that occurred on the evening of January 28, 2026. According to surveillance footage and witness testimony, Sohail arrived at the Chabad Lubavitch headquarters in a 2012 Honda Accord and parked near a side entrance. The court documents allege that the defendant exited his vehicle to manually clear snow and move protective stanchions, creating a clear path toward a wooden door. Sohail then allegedly returned to his car and intentionally reversed into the entrance five separate times with enough force to knock the door off its hinges and cause structural damage to the frame. Thousands of congregants were inside or near the building at the time of the attack, though law enforcement confirmed that no physical injuries were sustained by the public or the defendant.

Sentencing Parameters and the Five Thousand Dollar Threshold

The severity of the potential sentence for Dan Sohail is contingent upon the total monetary value of the property damage caused during the incident. Under the specific federal statute cited in the complaint, if the damage to the religious property is proven to exceed five thousand dollars, Sohail faces a maximum of three years in federal prison. Should the damage be assessed at a lower value, the maximum term of imprisonment is reduced to one year. This federal charge exists alongside a series of state level charges, which include attempted assault and aggravated harassment as...