Beating victim’s dad rages against Nadler, Schumer at House Judiciary hearing

The dad of the victim in a brutal anti-Semitic attack lashed out Monday at Jewish Democratic leaders Jerry Nadler and Chuck Schumer, accusing them during a contentious House Judiciary Committee field hearing of ignoring his son’s plight while permitting Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg’s soft-on-crime policies.

Barry Borgen told Nadler, the committee’s ranking member, that he was “disappointed” with his fellow “Jewish New Yorker” over his response to the attack on Joseph Borgen, who was brutally beaten while walking to a pro-Israel rally near Times Square in May 2021.

“I called Mr. Schumer’s office, another Jewish New Yorker, numerous times. No one called us back,” Borgen told Nadler, who reps Midtown Manhattan as well as the Upper West Side and Upper East Side, of his treatment by the Senate’s majority leader.

“You have Jewish roots here, and behavior like this enables DA Bragg to just do whatever he wants to do,” the elder Borgen added. “We wouldn’t vote for Mr. Schumer again. … And if I lived in Manhattan, I wouldn’t vote for you, either.”

Joseph Borgen, 30, who was wearing a yarmulke, was attacked and pepper-sprayed by a pack of men who allegedly hurled anti-Semitic slurs at him. The beating left Borgen with a concussion, an injured wrist, a black eye and bruises all over his body.

Bragg triggered widespread outrage after offering one of Borgen’s assailants, 24-year-old Waseem Awawdeh — who allegedly called the victim a “dirty Jew” — a plea deal allowing Awawdeh to serve just six months in prison.

Two of the other defendants in the case, Mohammed Othman and Mahmoud Musa, were offered sentences of three-and-a-half to 15 years in prison and released on bonds of $150,000 and $50,000, respectively. A fourth suspect, Faisal Elezzi, is out on $15,000 cash bail. All three are still facing felony charges of assault as a hate crime in connection with the beating.

Moments before Borgen spoke, the GOP-led committee, chaired by Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), listened to the mother of a murdered Army vet lay into Bragg as the audience cheered her on.

Madeline Brame, who chairs the nonprofit Victims Rights Reform Council, told committee members that Bragg’s mishandling of her son Hason Correa’s 2018 killing began a few months after the district attorney took office last year.

“When Alvin Bragg came into office, he was handed a strong, trial-ready murder case and gang assault case against all four of these individuals,” she said, before recounting how “the case immediately began to unravel.”

“He dismissed — completely dismissed — gang assault and murder indictments against two of the defendants clearly on video participating in the brutal, savage slaughter of my son,” Brame went on. “Hason was kicked, punched, stomped and stabbed nine times by four individuals whom he did not know, nor had he done them any harm.”

Four siblings — Christopher, James and Mary Saunders, and another brother, Travis Stewart — attacked the 35-year-old married father of three outside a Harlem apartment building.

James Saunders pleaded guilty to gang assault and second-degree murder and sentenced to 20 years to life in prison, below the maximum of 25 years to life — along with Christopher Saunders, who was also convicted of gang assault and sentenced to 20 years to life.

Travis Stewart also pleaded guilty to gang assault but was sentenced to just seven years in prison. Mary Saunders was released from prison last May on time served after having spent 14 months at Rikers Island.

“Travis will be out in the next 18 months,” Brame said. “Mary Saunders — this savage is currently walking the streets of Harlem like she didn’t just participate in the brutal slaughter of another human being — home with her family, home with her children.

“If that’s not a threat to public safety, I don’t know what is,” she added. “And as far as the Manhattan district attorney’s office, if he’s receiving one penny of federal dollars, you need to pull that funding until he starts doing his damn job and prosecuting crime.”

Audience members broke into applause several times during Brame’s testimony, prompting Jordan to remind spectators of the hearing’s rules of decorum.

US Rep. Elise Stefanik, New York’s top Republican in the House, praised the victims who testified — while chiding critics who tried to smear them.

“It’s important to note that many of the Democrats on this committee have smeared brave victims and fellow New Yorkers here today, calling them props, a circus, a performance, MAGA Broadway props and an underlying sham,” she said.

“What have Republicans focused on? We focused on giving victims a voice. We focused on crimes.”

Members of the committee also heard testimony Monday from the attorney for Jose Alba, the bodega worker who was infamously charged with murder for fatally stabbing a man who attacked him inside the store, and who spent nearly a week at Rikers Island before the charge against him was dropped.

“I am not here because I’m supporting Republicans. I am not here because I want to criticize the Democrats. I just want to tell the public about the horrible experience I had to go through because of crime in this city,” lawyer Imran Ansari read from Alba’s statement.

Alba recounted that on July 1, he stabbed a man in self-defense after he violently attacked the bodega clerk during an argument with the suspect and his girlfriend over potato chips.

The store employee said he was locked up in New York City’s notorious jail, where he was denied medical care and was forced to endure harsh conditions “inside a crowded and unsafe intake cell.”

“Even though the charges were ultimately dropped, they should not have been brought against me to begin with,” Alba wrote in his statement. “I am now traumatized from the incident. I am not working because I’m terrified for my life that someone in the gang will come after me for revenge.”

Monday’s field hearing, aimed at what Republicans called Bragg’s “pro-crime, anti-victim politics,” followed a preemptive rebuttal from Democrats dismissing the move as a “sham” to get back at Bragg for charging former President Donald Trump with 34 felony counts of business fraud.

As Bragg arrived to work at his nearby office Monday morning, he ignored reporters’ questions about the controversial congressional hearing.

The hearing comes as Bragg supporters cite recent dips in some Big Apple crimes — including a 34% decrease in anti-Semitic crimes through March 31 over last year — although the number is still up 55% from the same period in 2021, before Bragg took office.

As of last week, shootings were also down 23%, with 244 recorded so far this year compared to 317 over the same period in 2022, NYPD stats show.

Bragg defended his own record in a statement on Twitter Monday, noting that “virtually every major crime category is lower in Manhattan now than it was last year.” 

“During the first quarter of 2023 the NYPD reported steep declines in most major crime categories, including murder, rape, robbery and burglary,” he said.

“For outside politicians to now appear in New York City on the taxpayer dime for a political stunt is a slap in the face of the dedicated NYPD officers, prosecutors and other public servants who work tirelessly every day with facts and data to keep our home safe.” 

At the Javits Building, protesters, most of them opposed to the GOP-led hearing but some in support, packed the hall outside the committee’s venue on the sixth floor of the Javits Federal Building.

The demonstrators started chanting shortly after Jordan kicked off the session, attempting to drown out his opening statement.

They were heard yelling, “Indict Jim Jordan!” and brandished signs that read, “Jim Jordan Traitor,” “34 felonies,” “Jim Jordan insurrectionist” and “Jim Jordan Sleazy Liar.”

One supporter found her way into the center of the anti-hearing protest wearing a T-shirt that read “America, America, America” in red, white and blue and yelled, “Jim Jordan is a patriot!”

Shortly before the hearing got underway, Nadler and New York City Mayor Eric Adams held a fiery press briefing condemning the event as a political stunt.

“The House Judiciary Committee will convene what the chairman calls a field hearing,” Nadler told reporters. “It may have some of the trappings of a hearing — it will have opening statements, witnesses, and the members will ask questions — but don’t be fooled, this is not a serious exercise. This is a political stunt.

“The chairman says this hearing is about violent crime in Manhattan. But New York remains one of the safest big cities in America,” he said. “In the meantime, homicide rates in places such as Ohio, Indiana, Texas and Arizona are much higher than in New York.”

Democrats also note that illegal guns making their way into the five boroughs are manufactured elsewhere, including in red states.

Nadler accused the GOP of staging the hearing as payback for Trump’s indictment.

“This hearing is being called for one reason and one reason only, to protect Donald Trump,” Nadler fumed, slamming the session as an “outrageous abuse of power.”

The Democrat argued that Jordan and his GOP colleagues — “acting as an extension of the Trump defense team” — are trying to intimidate Bragg under the guise of holding a discussion about violent crime in New York City, which he touted as “one of the safest big cities in America.”

Meanwhile, committee member Madeleine Dean (D-Pa.) said she had “great sympathy” for the victims, “but there is an underlying sham going on here.”

“I know you don’t want to hear it, your voices are important, but two things can be true at the same time,” she told the witneses.

“It is not our jurisdiction to interfere with an independent district attorney’s office,” she said. “We are not properly here.”

Additional reporting by Craig McCarthy and Jorge Fitz-Gibbon