Ex-Cornell student gets 21-month prison sentence for anti-Semitic death threats

A former student at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York has been sentenced to nearly two years in prison for posting death and rape threats to Jewish students.

“Today, former Cornell University student Patrick Dai was sentenced to serve 21 months in prison for posting anonymous threats to kill Jewish students,” U.S. Attorney Carla B. Freedman for the Northern District of New York said in a press release on Monday.

“Before imposing a sentence, the court found that this was a hate crime under the federal Sentencing Guidelines because Dai targeted Jewish students and substantially disrupted the university’s core function of educating its students,” Freedman continued.

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According to Reuters, Dai was charged in 2023, pleaded guilty in April, and was sentenced to 21 months in prison on Aug. 12. After he is released from prison, he will go through three years of supervised release.

Dai, through his plea deal, admitted that in October 2023 he threatened to bomb and rape Jews in an online discussion board.

“Every student has the right to pursue their education without fear of violence based on who they are, how they look, where they are from or how they worship,” Kristen Clarke, an Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights at the Justice Department, said in the press release on Monday. “Antisemitic threats of violence, like the defendant’s vicious and graphic threats here, violate that right.”

“As part of his previously entered guilty plea, Dai admitted that, on Oct. 28 and 29, 2023, he posted threatening messages to the Cornell section of an online discussion forum, including posts that said ‘gonna shoot up 104 west,’” the Department of Justice noted in its statement. “104 west” is a dining hall at Cornell that, according to the Justice Department, “caters predominantly to Kosher diets and is next to the Cornell Jewish Center.”

Additionally, the Department of Justice stated that, “In another post, Dai threatened to ‘stab’ and ‘slit the throat’ of any Jewish man he saw on campus, to rape and throw off a cliff any Jewish women he saw and to behead any Jewish babies.” The former student also threatened to “‘bring an assault rifle to campus and shoot all you pig jews.’”

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In December, student demonstrators held a demonstration in which they accused Cornell President Martha Pollack and the university of being guilty of “genocide” against Palestinians.

Campus Reform has contacted Cornell University for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.