Stuart Seldowitz, 64, was arraigned on Thursday for two counts of stalking as a hate crime and one count of aggravated harassment.
Seldowitz served as President Barack Obama’s National Security Council chief. He also worked in the US State Department’s Office of Israel and Palestinian Affairs in the early 2000s.
Videos of Seldowitz’s hateful tirades against Mohamed Hussein, a 24-year-old food vendor, over his Egyptian heritage and Muslim faith went massively viral on social media.
The abuse had reportedly been going on for weeks by the time of his arrest.
This man wearing a green jacket was berating and harassing a halal cart vendor off 83rd and 2nd Ave in NYC. Does anyone know who this man is? Planning to report to the authorities. pic.twitter.com/GwklyXpsPH
— Layla (@itslaylas) November 21, 2023
his harassment of the Halal Cart vendor at 83rd and 2nd ave has been ongoing for two weeks.
NYPD has been called multiple times, local precinct stated that “there is nothing they can do because it is free speech”. pic.twitter.com/6LYL40TTFK— Layla (@itslaylas) November 21, 2023
Assistant District Attorney Jordan Gwynn told the court at the arraignment that Seldowitz’s behavior was “unprovoked and unwarranted,” according to a report from the New York Post.
Seldowitz’s attorney, Scott Bookstein, argued that his client is “not a warmonger and an Islamophobe” despite the shocking content of his rants at the vendor.
“He’s a peace-loving person, devoid of hate from Muslims or anyone else,” Bookstein said, acknowledging that the allegations contained “a lot of ugly words,” according to the Post.
“I want the court, the prosecution, the media and the public to know that the allegations attributed to my client are 100% antithetical to who Stuart Seldowitz is — what his core beliefs are,” Bookstein claimed.
Seldowitz declined to answer questions from the media as he left the courthouse.
The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office obtained a full protection order to keep the former Obama official away from Hussein.
After the videos went viral, Gotham Government Relations, the lobbying firm where Seldowitz was employed, cut all ties to him. In a statement, the company said that his actions were “vile, racist, and beneath the dignity of the standards we practice at our firm.”
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