Vandal busted on hate crimes charges for allegedly splattering red paint on home of Brooklyn Museum’s Jewish director: cops
A vandal who allegedly splattered red paint on the home of the Brooklyn Museum’s director during a disturbing outbreak of anti-Israel protests last month was busted on hate crimes charges, cops said Wednesday.
Taylor Pelton, 28, of Queens, was picked up by the NYPD’s Hate Crime Task Force and charged with criminal mischief as a hate crime in connection to the June 12 attack at the Brooklyn Heights home of Anne Pasternak, who is Jewish, authorities said.
She was allegedly part of a group of five masked vandals who tossed red paint on the door and displayed a banner in the outdoor vestibule that read, “Anne Pasternak Brooklyn Museum White-Supremacist Zionist.”
An inverted red triangle was also sprayed on her door — a symbol used in the past by Hamas to identify Israeli military targets.
Pelton — who has no prior arrests — is also accused of defacing another building on Douglass Street in Cobble Hill with red paint that same morning, and faces another count of hate crime criminal mischief for that act, cops said.
Late that night, the NYPD released surveillance footage of the five suspects wanted in the destruction of Pasternak’s building.
By Wednesday, no other arrests had been made, and cops said the investigation was ongoing.
Authorities also blasted out images and video of three of the four vandals who threw red paint on the German consulate at United Nations Plaza in Manhattan around 3:30 a.m. that same day.
No arrests have been made in that incident.
Law enforcement sources said at the time that investigators were looking into whether the two cases, along with similar acts of vandalism across the city, are connected.
