Ohio Man Who Yelled ‘Kill All Jews’ During Assault Sentenced To 2 1/2 Years
Izmir Koch
By Aiden Pink July 10, 2019
An Ohio man was sentenced to 30 months in prison on Tuesday in connection with an assault that was categorized as a hate crime, the Cincinnati Enquirer reported.
Izmir Koch, 34, stepped outside a Cincinnati restaurant in 2017 and started yelling in Russian if anyone around was Jewish. A man with whom he had mutual friends, who had stepped outside to smoke, reportedly indicated that he was, whereupon Koch and his associates jumped him, according to court documents.
Koch punched the victim in the back of the head, knocked him down and kicked him, prosecutors said. During the attack, Koch allegedly yelled “I want to kill all of the Jews” and “I want to stab the Jews.”
The victim, who suffered a broken facial bone and bruised ribs, is actually not Jewish but has some Jewish family and friends, officials said.
Koch was convicted in December.
“Hate-fueled violent crimes ripple through communities, making entire groups feel unsafe and unwelcome, spawning fear and anger,” U.S. Attorney Ben Glassman said. “That is why investigating and prosecuting hate crimes is such a high priority. Every community – every person – is entitled to the equal protection of the laws.”
In addition to the hate crime charges, Koch was also convicted of lying to the FBI because he originally denied being part of the fight.
Koch could have received a maximum of 10 years.
Aiden Pink is the deputy news editor of the Forward. Contact him at pink@forward.com or follow him on Twitter @aidenpink
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
