Loay Abdelfattah Alnaji, 50, puts his hands behind his back as he leaves Ventura County Superior Court in connection with the death of Paul Kessler in Ventura, California, on November 17, 2023. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

Jewish leaders decry ‘inadequate’ plea deal for California man guilty of pro-Israel protester’s death

Loay Alnaji will spend no more than a year in county jail after pleading guilty to all charges including involuntary manslaughter

by · The Times of Israel

JTA — The local director of the Anti-Defamation League was one of multiple Jewish leaders to decry a plea deal reached Tuesday in the trial of a man charged with causing the 2023 death of a Jewish pro-Israel protester, Paul Kessler, in a Los Angeles suburb.

Under the terms of the deal, defendant Loay Abdelfattah Alnaji would face no more than a year in county jail.

Alnaji, 53, of Moorpark, California, admitted to hitting Kessler, then 69, in the head with a megaphone during dueling pro-Palestinian and pro-Israel demonstrations in a Los Angeles suburb in November 2023.

Kessler later died of his injuries, and his death became the first tied to demonstrations surrounding the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, attack and subsequent war in Gaza in the United States.

On Tuesday, Alnaji pleaded guilty to all charges related to Kessler’s death, including felony involuntary manslaughter and felony battery causing serious bodily injury, after initially pleading not guilty.

While the maximum sentence for his charges is four years in state prison, the court indicated that, as a result of the guilty plea, it is likely to place Alnaji on formal probation and that he will serve no more than 365 days in county jail. A county jail sentence is generally considered less severe than time in state prison and is served locally, often with possibilities for work release, electronic monitoring or early release.

Alnaji’s sentencing hearing is scheduled for June 25, and he remains free on $50,000 bail, according to the Ventura County District Attorney’s Office.

Attorney Ron Bamieh, left, listens to his client Loay Abdelfattah Alnaji in Ventura County Superior Court on November 17, 2023, in Ventura, California. (AP/Damian Dovarganes)

Both state prosecutors and Jewish advocates denounced the deal, saying the sentence would be too light.

“Alnaji should be sentenced to prison for his violent behavior, and our office strongly objects to any lesser sentence,” Ventura County District Attorney Erik Nasarenko said in a statement. “While no amount of punishment will ever fully account for the Kessler family loss, a prison commitment underscores the severity of this crime and will deter others from committing similar acts of violence.”

Joshua Burt, the regional director of the Anti-Defamation League of Santa Barbara/Tri-State counties, said the deal would yield a sentence too light to be a deterrent.

“The sentence attached to this plea deal is woefully inadequate and emboldens others to act in anger against the Jewish community,” Burt wrote in a post on Instagram. “Without real, lasting consequences, men with evil intent or anger in their hearts will not be deterred from harming an already vulnerable community, elderly and Jewish alike.”

Citing the recent spate of violent attacks on Jewish communities and individuals, including last year’s deadly shooting of two Israeli Embassy staffers in Washington, DC, and the fatal firebombing attack on a march in support of the Israeli hostages in Boulder, Colorado — for which the perpetrator was handed a sentence of life without parole on Thursday —  Burt warned that the plea deal will “only serve to further isolate and victimize Jewish communities in the United States and beyond.”

Flowers and candles are left at a makeshift shrine placed at the scene of a Sunday confrontation that lead to death of a demonstrator, Tuesday, Nov. 7, 2023, in Thousand Oaks, Calif. Paul Kessler, 69, died at a hospital on Monday from a head injury after witnesses reported he was involved in a “physical altercation” during pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian demonstrations at an intersection in Thousand Oaks, a suburb northwest of Los Angeles, authorities said. (AP Photo/Richard Vogel)

Rabbi Noah Farkas, the president and chief executive of the Jewish Federation of Los Angeles, told JTA in a statement that Kessler’s death carried deep significance because “not only was he the first Jew to die [in the US] during the Israel-Hamas protest movement after October 7, but he did so while peacefully supporting his people.”

Farkas said he, too, wished Alnaji would be penalized more harshly, but that he saw a benefit in the case reaching a conclusion.

“We mourn his loss and welcome the admission of guilt for this heinous crime,” Farkas said about Kessler. “While we would have liked a harsher sentence that better reflects the pain of [the] Kessler family, we respect the legal process. Our hope is that today’s news helps bring closure to his family and gives our community the ability to demonstrate safely.”

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.