New Jersey man sentenced to 13 years in prison for series of anti-Semitic crimes

A 35-year-old New Jersey man was sentenced to 13.5 years in prison after pleading guilty to a series of anti-Semitic crimes, the Ocean County District Attorney's Office said.

Ron Carr of Manchester Township pleaded guilty to spray-painting swastikas and the names of his daughters on some houses and scrawling red hearts on other houses in Pine Lake Park on June 6, 2023.

The next day, Carr was “violently” arrested after setting fire to a house on First Avenue around 3 a.m. and making several anti-Semitic statements to investigators during questioning, according to an affidavit listing 36 counts against him.

Carr poured gasoline from a plastic container onto wood in the house and lit it with a lighter, officials said. The fire destroyed one house and caused heat damage in three others before firefighters were able to extinguish it. No one was injured.

“It's always difficult for a criminal defense attorney when a client this young is accused of serious crimes,” Carr's attorney Shane Paugh said after he was arraigned. “I hope he gets the help he needs.”

Carr, who was sentenced on Friday, sprayed the hearts because he “felt compassion for people who were not part of the Jewish community,” the affidavit said.

According to police, he described Manchester’s Jewish residents as “a plague.”

Carr also told investigators he believed the house he set on fire would be turned into a school or a “prayer land,” the affidavit said.

In June 2023, Carr was charged with 36 counts of bias intimidation, aggravated arson, arson and criminal damage to property, the state Attorney General's Office said last year.

NJ Advance Media writer Jeff Goldman contributed to this report.

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You can reach Amira Sweilem at [email protected].