Josef Neumann, who was mortally wounded from a machete attack on the day of Hanukkah at the House of a Rabbi in Monsey, New York, died from his wounds on 29th March 2020. This was confirmed by sources from the law-enforcement. Neumann was seventy-two years old.
Neumann suffered serious brain injury
Apart from Neumann four other men were also attacked by Grafton Thomas. The incident had taken place on 28th December on the occassion of Hanukkah in the house of Rabbi Chaim Rottenberg. Thomas had used a machete to attack Neumann and the rest. The machete had pierced Josef Neumann’s skull and damaged his brain.
After the gruesome attack, the Orthodox Jewish Public Affairs Council posted on their official Twitter account a picture of Neumann. He was lying unconscious on a hospital bed in the Westchester Medical Center in Valhalla. On his left eye were two rows of stitches.
Neumann’s family was very hopeful regarding his recovery. He had showed some signs of improvement but even if he had woken up he would have permanent brain damage.
Thomas might be charged with murder
The assailant Grafton Thomas was charged with attempted murder and hate crime. According to the FBI Thomas had kept with him anti-Semitic journals and was looking for places on the internet to make for his target. After Neumann’s death he might be charged with murder.
NYPD had caught Thomas with the machete beneath the passenger seat of his car in Harlem. He was also covered in blood. This was after an hour had passed after the attack.
Michael Sussman, defense lawyer for Thomas, has stated that his client has psychosis and was not on his medications around the time of the attack. Thomas had been arrested two times before this. Once for consuming marijuana in 2002 and then in 2009 for assaulting a man.