Pittsford man admits in court to antisemitic threats at Cornell University

By Gary Craig, Newspaper Guild of Rochester

Patrick Dai, of Pittsford, admitted Wednesday that he threatened Jewish students at Cornell University in online postings that called for their deaths.

A former Cornell student, Dai pleaded guilty in federal court in Syracuse to using interstate commerce means for threats to kill or injure.

Dai was arrested in late October and accused of posting menacing messages on online campus forums. The messages appeared on the online bulletin boards only weeks into the Israel-Hamas war.

Dai was 21 at the time of his arrest.

Dai admitted to the threats in his plea. He threatened to "shoot up" a dining hall that mostly caters to Jewish students and to "bring an assault rifle to campus and shoot" all Jewish students at the university in Ithaca. The postings also included other threats of violence against Jewish students.

Dai’s attorney, Federal Public Defender Lisa Peebles, said examinations have shown Dai to be heavily on the autism spectrum. She has said that he posted the threats, feigning to be a Hamas sympathizer, so he could show how dangerous the militant organization could be.

In an exclusive interview in November, Dai’s mother, Bing Liu, told of mental health issues suffered by her son and revealed that he later added an apologetic posting to the online forums.

Dai wrote in that posting: ''Apologies. There is no room for divisive statements in person or online. I am sorry.

"A lesser man would try to hide behind a mask and that is exactly what I did. Shameful, calling for violence against people because of a cruel war a thousand miles away. Even more shameful because there is no excuse for the targeting of innocent civilians, much less my classmates."

(The interview with Bing Liu appeared in the Democrat and Chronicle, where this story could have appeared were the Gannett company willing to negotiate a fair contract with its newsroom union, which is now on strike. Similarly, Dai’s plea was first reported on Twitter Wednesday by a striking Democrat and Chronicle reporter, more than 12 hours before the Democrat and Chronicle relied on a wire service for a skimpy version of the plea specifics.)

Dai is scheduled to be sentenced in August and prosecutors are expected to argue that the threats qualify as hate crime, which would increase the sentence.

The maximum under the law is a five-year sentence, but advisory sentencing guidelines and Dai’s lack of a criminal record will likely establish a sentence lower than the maximum,

Peebles said she will argue that Dai should be released with time served. Under the plea, Dai can only appeal a sentence if it is greater than 15 months.