Man gets six-month sentence for ramming car into Jewish headquarters

Dan Sohail was sentenced to six months and one week in federal prison after he rammed his car into Chabad-Lubavitch World Headquarters at 770 Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights neighborhood. The 36-year-old New Jersey man had pleaded guilty in May 2026 to damaging religious property, a charge that closed a case involving one of the most recognizable sites in global Jewish life.

The crash took place on Jan. 29, 2026, and the car struck the entrance multiple times, with some accounts saying it hit five consecutive times after Sohail cleared away a barrier. The incident caused about $20,000 in damage at the headquarters, which serves as the symbolic center of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement and draws worshippers, visitors and community members to one of Orthodox Judaism’s best-known addresses.

At sentencing, the judge said a psychiatric report showed Sohail’s mental health challenges “played an important role” in his decision-making. The judge also said Sohail needed mental health treatment and had not acted out of hate. Sohail had already spent six months in detention, and the court gave him one additional week, producing a term of just over six months in total.

Prosecutors had sought a longer prison sentence and mental-health treatment, but the judge declined to impose the harsher term. The case involved FBI New York, the NYPD and the U.S. Attorney’s Office, underscoring the federal and local law enforcement response when a vehicle is used against a religious institution. Even with limited physical damage, the episode carried clear intimidation value because it unfolded at a major Jewish landmark in Crown Heights, a neighborhood where security around communal sites remains a constant concern.

The sentence now stands as a test of how courts balance damage to religious property, mental health and claims about intent when a symbolic target is hit but mass casualties are avoided.