“In America, we rule by law not by fear,” U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan Jerome F. Gorgon Jr. said on Wednesday. “These alleged threats and attempts to terrorize government officials, businesses, and the Jewish Federation are anti-American. We will counter intimidation with justice.”
The defendants, who range in age from 21 to 28, allegedly promulgated a series of demands focused on “divestment” from Israel after the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre by Hamas. One conspirator stated publicly that the group “must escalate, mobilize, and organize to demand divestment by any means necessary,” according to the DOJ.
Group members allegedly spray-painted “Free Palestine” and “Intifada” onto the windows of a Jewish Federation of Detroit building on the one-year anniversary of the Oct. 7 attack. “Intifada” is the Arabic word for “uprising,” though it holds violent connotations in the Israeli collective memory as a reference to periods of violent terrorist attacks. The group also left behind upside-down triangles, a symbol popularized by Hamas’s military wing.
In another incident, Alexander Matthew Sepulveda and Jonathan Hongru Zou allegedly threw glass jars filled with a blue substance and food compost at the University of Michigan provost’s home. The pair reportedly graffitied the home with the same red triangles, along with the words “Divest” and “Free Palestine.”
The DOJ says the group frequently employed violent language. Ahmet Kerem Korkaya allegedly stated that one victim’s “entire family” was on his “hit list.” Korkaya, then a medical student, allegedly stated that he was “gonna be the dirtiest f***ing doctor ever / I’m gonna be [victim’s] doctor / poison her a** slowly,” referring to another victim.
The DOJ is charging members of the group with conspiracy to transmit a threat, destruction of property to prevent seizure, and conspiracy to tamper with a witness. The latter crime carries a statutory maximum penalty of 20 years in prison.
The FBI’s Detroit office investigated the case with support from various local law enforcement agencies.
WHY THE CYCLE OF CAMPUS ANTISEMITISM NEVER ENDS
The charges come amid the Trump administration’s crackdown on anti-Israel activism on college campuses, violent and nonviolent alike. In one high-profile case, Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish doctoral student at Tufts University, was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers in 2025 days after penning a pro-Palestinian op-ed.
The administration has also used campus antisemitism to justify revoking federal funding from universities across the country.
