The shocking sentence a California court gave for killing a pro-Israel Jew
I have spent my career using courts of law to hold terrorists and their financiers accountable. I am, by training and by conviction, a believer in the legal system.
Due process, careful evidence, the discipline of statute and precedent — these are tools I have wielded for decades, and they are tools I trust. Which is why I do not raise concerns about a criminal resolution lightly.
But a recent, shocking plea deal in California demands that concerns be raised.
I have spent my career using courts of law to hold terrorists and their financiers accountable. I am, by training and by conviction, a believer in the legal system. Barbara Davidson/The New York Post
But a recent, shocking plea deal in California demands that concerns be raised. via @buttonslives/Twitter
Pro-Palestinian professor Loay Alnaji was charged in in 2023 connection with the death of 69-year-old Paul Kessler, a Jewish demonstrator killed at a public protest after the October 7 terror attack by Hamas in Israel.
Alnaji recently pleaded guilty in advance of trial as part of a plea deal. The expected sentence is one year in jail, at most, and three years of probation.
On paper, this might appear to be the routine resolution of a criminal case. It is not.
What makes this case extraordinary is not the sentence alone. It is the language in which the court has resolved it. The incident has been characterized as “a dispute that escalated into an accident.” That single phrase carries the weight of the entire judgment. And on the facts, it is deeply inadequate.
Language is not ornament in the law. It is the law’s instrument. The words a court chooses to describe a crime determine how that crime will be remembered, deterred, and judged in every comparable case that follows.
When the death of an elderly Jewish man, struck during a charged public confrontation in a climate of escalating antisemitism, is reduced to a “dispute” and an “accident,” the court has not merely closed a file. It has authored a precedent about what we are prepared to name this kind of violence, and what we are not.
Alnaji recently pleaded guilty in advance of trial as part of a plea deal. Barbara Davidson/The New York Post
This case did not happen in a vacuum.
Antisemitic incidents in the United States have surged to numbers not seen in modern American memory. Jewish students are harassed on campuses. Jewish institutions are targeted. Jewish identifiers: a kippah, a Star of David, a sign at a public rally, have once again become reasons people calculate their public movements.
American Jews are not asking for special treatment. They are asking that the obvious context of the violence directed at them not be quietly excised from the record.
To recognize context is not to abandon legal standards. It is the opposite.
Every prosecutor knows that intent, motive, and circumstance are not optional flourishes — they are the substance of what separates manslaughter from murder, accident from assault, private grievance from public harm.
The argument is not that every troubling incident must be charged as a hate crime. The argument is narrower and more important: where context is plainly relevant, it cannot be quietly set aside for the sake of expediency.
When a justice system selects language that softens the contours of a hate-tinged killing, it does three things at once. It denies the victim’s family the dignity of an honest accounting. It signals to those weighing similar acts that the price may be modest. And it tells communities watching from the outside that their fear is more than they should expect the state to share.
Minimization is not de-escalation. It is invitation.
At Shurat HaDin, we have litigated against terror financiers, foreign regimes, and the architects of mass violence in American courts, Israeli courts, and international tribunals. The lesson is the same in every jurisdiction. When violence connected to hatred is renamed into something smaller, the violence does not shrink. It grows.
Minimization is not de-escalation. It is invitation.
No single case defines a justice system. But certain cases reveal where a system is straining, where the gap between the facts on the ground and the words chosen to describe them has become too wide to ignore. The Kessler case is one of those.
Paul Kessler is dead. He was 69. He went to a public demonstration in his own country, defending his beliefs, and he did not come home. The man responsible will serve approximately one year, at most.
And the court has called it an accident.
Justice must be done. It must also be named. If we cannot bring ourselves to do the second, the first begins to fail us.
Nitsana Darshan-Leitner is an Israeli attorney who founded Shurat HaDin, which represents terror victims.
A Detroit man accused of bilking the government out of millions in federal student aid has pleaded guilty to charges, officials said.
Brandon Robinson entered guilty pleas to wire fraud and aggravated identity theft in federal court in Detroit on Wednesday.
The 42-year-old also admitted to filing more than 100 fraudulent unemployment insurance claims between April 2020 and March 2023, receiving more than $1 milion in benefits.
He is scheduled to be sentenced on Sept. 1. Robinson faces a maximum of 20 years in prison for wire fraud and up to two years for aggravated identity theft.
Robinson's attorney, Doraid Elder, was not immediately available for comment on Thursday.
Authorities alleged he led a decade-long, multi-million-dollar Federal Student Aid fraud scheme.
“More than 1,000 fake students," U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan Jerome Gorgon said in a statement. "A decade of fraud. This man built an industrial-scale operation to loot federal student aid programs and to steal from the American taxpayer."
Investigators said that from January 2015 to February 2024, Robinson submitted fraudulent student aid claims for more than 1,200 individuals at more than 100 schools in 24 states.
The scheme netted Robinson and his co-conspirators more than $16 million in student aid benefits, according to authorities.
Gorgon said two of Robinson's co-conspirators in the scheme, Antonio Robinson and Joshuan Porter, also pleaded guilty to charges.
Antonio Robinson is scheduled to be sentenced on July 7, and Porter is scheduled to be sentenced on Aug. 4. Both face a maximum of 20 years in prison.
"Scams like this steal money from hardworking taxpayers and legitimate students, and that is unacceptable," John Woolley, Special Agent in Charge of the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Inspector General Central Regional Office, said in a statement. "The OIG and our law enforcement partners are committed to fighting student aid fraud, and we will continue to aggressively pursue those who participate in these types of crimes."
The case follows others in Michigan involving identity theft and fraud.
Last week, a Detroit man was ordered to stand trial for allegedly stealing others' identities and defrauding the state of $400,000 in pandemic relief.
Last month, a Detroit man accused of a credit card fraud scheme pleaded guilty to federal charges.
Also in April, three Michigan residents were sentenced for their roles in an identity theft and unclaimed property fraud scheme totaling more than half a million dollars.
The Deep State leaked a CIA Iran war dossier to the Washington Post that refutes Trump’s claims that the Iranian Regime’s missiles are mostly decimated.
On Wednesday, President Trump sparred with a reporter in the Oval Office during a meeting with UFC fighters.
The reporter asked Trump about his decision to pause Project Freedom amid a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.
Trump told the reporter that the US military has decimated Iran’s missile capabilities and they probably only have about 18 percent left.
The Deputy District Director of an Illinois United States congressman has been indicted on federal fraud charges for allegedly fraudulently obtaining more than $31,000 in unemployment insurance benefits during the COVID pandemic.
Jaylani Hussein, executive director of CAIR-MN. (CAIR-MN/Facebook screenshot)
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Alpha News has learned the executive director of the state’s Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) was on the receiving end of more than $110,000 in taxpayer payments over six months for a publicly-funded adult foster care program he ran from a Rosemount residence.
What’s more, after Alpha News contacted Jaylani Hussein for comment on April 29, his name and phone number were removed from the license record.
License records changed after inquiry
Hussein, who has led the Minnesota chapter of CAIR since 2015, was — until days ago — listed as a license holder for an adult foster care program alongside co-licensee Fardosa Adan Hassan, according to state records.
A screenshot shows Hussein’s name listed alongside Hassan on the license. The phone number previously listed on the license record matched the number listed for Hussein in multiple CAIR press releases.
Screenshot: Minnesota DHS Adult Foster Care License
The Minnesota Aging and Disability Resources website continues to list Hussein’s namealongside co-licensee Hassan.
Alpha News obtained payment data from the Minnesota Department of Human Services (DHS) that shows between August 2025 and February 2026, the program in Hussein’s and Hassan’s names received more than $110,000 in taxpayer-funded reimbursements.
According to DHS, adult foster care is a licensed, home-based residential option for adults age 18 and older who need help with daily living. These programs are reimbursed through Medicaid — meaning taxpayer dollars flow directly to providers for housing and care of vulnerable adults.
Alpha News asked Hussein how he balances operating a home foster care program with his role as executive director of CAIR-MN, as well as running Zeila Consultants — a business he created to “develop and offer cross-cultural training workshops on East African cultures,” where his co-licensee, Hassan, also works as a consultant.
Hussein did not respond to inquiries.
No allegations of wrongdoing have been made against Hussein, Hassan or the adult foster care.
Speaking out while inside the system
Hussein — who moved to Minnesota from Somalia in 1993 — has been an outspoken figure in the state’s fraud debate, frequently raising concerns about what he describes as bias against the Somali community.
In the wake of a viral video by Nick Shirley, a Somali-run daycare in Minneapolis held a press conference to report a break-in and vandalism — including missing “important documentation” related to employees and children. The claim quickly drew widespread skepticism online.
Of the reported break-in, Hussein stated: “This disturbing incident raises serious concerns about the real-world consequences of anti-Somali, anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim hate speech circulating online … That raises serious questions about whether bias played a role in the vandalism, and those questions deserve a thorough investigation by law enforcement authorities.”
In an interview with CNN on the Shirley video, Hussein said, “This climate of fear is disrupting livelihoods, separating families, and undermining the sense of safety and belonging for an entire community.”
“Somali Americans sit in an intersection of multiple marginalized identities. We are black, we are immigrants, and we are Muslim. As a result, our community has been scapegoated through sweeping narratives that criminalize our entire community based on identity rather than evidence,” he said during a January hearing.
Conversely, Alpha News found no public instance in which Hussein disclosed his role as a license holder of a taxpayer-funded program that has collected more than $110,000 while publicly commenting on similar programs under scrutiny.
Keep these in mind as you contemplate the direction of the American government over the past 50 years and especially since the Obama election.
The Goals of Communism
(as read into the congressional record January 10, 1963, from "The Naked Communist" by Cleon Skousen)
1. U.S. acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war.
2. U.S. willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war.
3. Develop the illusion that total disarmament of the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength.
4. Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war.
5. Extension of long-term loans to Russia and Soviet satellites.
6. Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist domination.
7. Grant recognition of Red China. Admission of Red China to the U.N.
8. Set up East and West Germany as separate states in spite of Khrushchev's promise in 1955 to settle the German question by free elections under supervision of the U.N.
9. Prolong the conferences to ban atomic tests because the United States has agreed to suspend tests as long as negotiations are in progress.
10. Allow all Soviet satellites individual representation in the U.N.
11. Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces. (Some Communist leaders believe the world can be taken over as easily by the U.N. as by Moscow. Sometimes these two centers compete with each other as they are now doing in the Congo.)
12. Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party.
13. Do away with all loyalty oaths.
14. Continue giving Russia access to the U.S. Patent Office.
15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.
16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.
17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers' associations. Put the party line in textbooks.
18. Gain control of all student newspapers.
19. Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.
20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policymaking positions.
21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.
22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to "eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms."
23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. "Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art."
24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them "censorship" and a violation of free speech and free press.
25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.
26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as "normal, natural, healthy."
27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with "social" religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a "religious crutch."
28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of "separation of church and state."
29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.
30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the "common man."
31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the "big picture." Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.
32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture--education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.
33. Eliminate all laws or procedures which interfere with the operation of the Communist apparatus.
34. Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities.
35. Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI.
36. Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.
37. Infiltrate and gain control of big business.
38. Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand.
39. Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.
40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.
41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.
42. Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special-interest groups should rise up and use united force to solve economic, political or social problems.
43. Overthrow all colonial governments before native populations are ready for self-government.
44. Internationalize the Panama Canal.
45. Repeal the Connally reservation so the United States cannot prevent the World Court from seizing jurisdiction over nations and individuals alike.
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