Subway Suspect in Antisemitic Rant Sentenced to Time Served

by Mindy Cohn

Bradley Werner pleaded guilty to a hate crime on Tuesday after he was caught on video in a 2021 antisemitic subway attack screaming at a Chassidish Boro Park resident that he would not be safe in Manhattan and should go back to Brooklyn. 

The venom-filled rant was caught on video, including the moment he pushed the man while both were on the Manhattan-bound train and told him he is German.

"We assimilated … Everyone hates you for not being part of the community," Werner spouted. "... Go back to Brooklyn; you're safe there. But here you're not...Everyone hates you." 

Werner went on to blame frum Jews for the treatment of Palestinians. 

The victim filed charges a year after the incident, delaying the filing, according to the Forward, because he initially felt fearful about making the report. The report led to Werner's arrest in September. 

"Bradley Werner targeted a Jewish man and has now been held accountable for his anti-Semitic hate crime," Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said in a statement. "Nobody should ever feel unsafe because of their faith, and my office will continue to thoroughly investigate incidents of hate and bias in our communities."

Werner pleaded guilty on Tuesday to aggravated harassment in the second degree, a class-A misdemeanor hate crime with a maximum sentence of 364 days. 

Werner had been held in pre-trial custody over the past 11 months on a separate hate crime charge and was therefore sentenced to time served and nothing more.