Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By richards on February 9, 2017

A Chicago accountant identified by a tipster as a "white supremacist" was charged with a felony hate crime after his fingerprints were found on swastika stickers placed outside a Loop synagogue last weekend, prosecutors said Thursday.

Police executing a search warrant later found racist literature in the Pilsen home of Stuart Wright, 31, who has a swastika tattooed on his back, prosecutors said.

"We cannot tolerate this conduct," Judge Donald Panarese Jr. said Thursday as he ordered Wright held on $150,000 bail.

At around 12:30 a.m. on Saturday, video surveillance captured Wright placing two swastika stickers on the front door of the Chicago Loop Synagogue, an 800-person congregation at 16 S. Clark St., and then breaking a window with a U-shaped bike lock he pulled out of his pocket, Assistant State's Attorney Lorraine Scaduto said.

Wright then ran back to a dark-gray sports utility vehicle and drove away, she said. Construction workers heard the glass shatter, saw Wright flee and flagged down a police squad car, according to an arrest report.

On Sunday, the synagogue publicly released the video and announced a $3,000 reward for information leading to an arrest. The next day, police received a tip from someone who named Wright as a "local white supremacist" who had left swastika stickers outside his Pilsen home, drove a gray Toyota 4Runner and had a swastika tattooed on his back, Scaduto said.

The tipster provided a license plate number for the vehicle, according to an arrest report, and identified Wright as a "skinhead."

Police set up surveillance of Wright, whose fingerprints were soon matched to ones left on the swastika stickers, she said. He was arrested around 11:45 a.m. Tuesday outside his home in the 2000 block of South Loomis Street, police said.

When he was arrested, Wright had three small healing cuts on his right hand, Scaduto said.

Wright's attorney said his client is a certified public accountant with a master's degree from DePaul University and asked the judge to release his client on his own recognizance.

The synagogue opened in 1959 and has a congregation of 800 people, according to the president of the synagogue, Lee Zoldan.

sschmadeke@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @SteveSchmadeke

Follow this link:
$150K bail for Chicago man charged with hate crime in Loop synagogue vandalism - Chicago Tribune

Category: Synagogue
Tags: