Woman faces hate crime charges for anti-Israel vandalism of Brooklyn Museum’s leaders homes

NEW YORK — A woman who police say helped vandalize the homes of the Brooklyn Museum’s leaders with red paint during a wave of pro-Palestinian protests has been arrested on hate crimes charges.

Taylor Pelton, 28, was arrested Wednesday on charges of criminal mischief and criminal mischief as a hate crime, police say.

Police say Pelton was one of six people seen on surveillance video footage vandalizing the homes of the museum’s director, Anne Pasternak, and its chief operating officer, Kimberly Trueblood, on June 12. The other people seen in the videos are still being sought.

Pasternak is Jewish. The activists left the front of her apartment building splattered with paint and a banner calling her a “white-supremacist Zionist.” An inverted red triangle that authorities say is a symbol used by Hamas to identify Israeli military targets was sprayed onto her door, according to court papers.

Pelton was arraigned Wednesday night and released with court supervision, a spokesperson for the Brooklyn district attorney’s office says.

In an email, Pelton’s attorney, Moira Meltzer-Cohen, didn’t address the specifics of the charges but criticized “the increasing trend of characterizing Palestine solidarity actions as hate crimes.” She says the willingness of prosecutors “to endorse the rhetorical collapse of Zionist ideology and protected religious identity, in order to criminalize criticism of Israel, signals a troubling departure from the principles on which our legal and political systems rest.”

The paint splashing happened days after hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters marched to the museum, occupied its lobby, vandalized artworks and hung a “Free Palestine” banner from its roof. Police arrested several dozen people.