Defendant: Gunnar Hassard (DOB 05/15/00)

Dec. 11, 2018 -- -- Westchester County District Attorney Anthony A. Scarpino, Jr. announced Purchase College student Gunnar Hassard was arraigned in Harrison Town Court for Aggravated Harassment in the First Degree, a class E felony, for hanging posters with Nazi symbolism in areas of the campus.

Bail was set at $5,000 cash or bond. His next court date is scheduled for Jan. 8, 2019.

Background
On Sunday evening Dec. 8, 2018, during the Jewish celebration of Hanukkah, the felony complaint alleges that 18-year-old Gunnar Hassard of Oneonta, NY, and a student at SUNY Purchase, hung multiple posters, which incorporated a swastika and symbols of Nazi Germany, on and near the Humanities Building.

The complaint states that the defendant posted multiple flyers on the campus “frequented and utilized by members of the Jewish community…causing alarm, fear and annoyance to the members of the campus community during the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah.”

New York State University Police arrested Hassard and charged him with Aggravated Harassment, a hate crime which specifically states a person is guilty of this crime when one “Etches, paints, draws upon or otherwise places a swastika, commonly exhibited as the emblem of Nazi Germany, on any building or other real property…”

Assistant District Attorney Cynthia Adimari, Chief of the Westchester District Attorney Rye Branch, is prosecuting the case.

 In compliance with the Rules of Professional Conduct, Rule 3.6, you are advised that a charge is merely an accusation and that a defendant is presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty.

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