Justice Department to seek federal hate crime charges and death penalty in killing of Israeli Embassy staffers
A photograph of Sarah Lynn Milgrim and Yaron Lischinsky is displayed outside the Lillian and Albert Small Capital Jewish Museum in Washington
By Hannah Rabinowitz, CNN
(CNN) — The Justice Department will seek to indict the man accused of killing two Israeli Embassy staff members in Washington, DC, on federal hate crime charges this week, according to sources familiar with the matter.
The indictment against Elias Rodriguez is expected to include special findings for capital punishment, where the Justice Department indicates it can pursue the death penalty, one of the sources said.
The charges, if approved by a grand jury, would position the case as a centerpiece of the Trump Justice Department’s fervent approaches toward both violent crime and targeted hate against the Jewish community.
The department vowed to seek swift and severe punishment against Rodriguez, who prosecutors say gunned down Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim as they were leaving an event at the Capitol Jewish Museum in May. Rodriguez allegedly shot dozens of times as the pair fell to the ground and as Milgrim, mortally wounded, tried to crawl away.
The grand jury sitting in the DC federal court has heard testimony from several witnesses, including acquaintances, family and friends of Rodriguez, a third person familiar with the case told CNN. That type of testimony indicates the prosecutors were likely pursuing for weeks evidence that could back up hate crime charges as well as a capital case, rather than standard gun violence charges, the person said.
Rodriguez is currently charged with using a firearm to commit murder, first-degree murder, murdering foreign officials, and using a firearm during a violent crime. He has not entered a formal plea in court.
CNN has reached out to the Justice Department for comment. An attorney representing Rodriguez declined to comment.
It took prosecutors weeks to nail down evidence that they believed was sufficient to charge Rodriguez with hate crimes, one source said, and another several days for leaders inside the Justice Department to sign off on bringing those charges to a grand jury, a second source told CNN.
Though world leaders quickly condemned the shootings as a heinous act of antisemitism, convicting an individual of hate crimes is difficult as prosecutors must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the crimes were motivated by prejudice against an individual’s “race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, ethnicity, gender or gender identity,” according to the FBI.
In Rodriguez’s case, that means that prosecutors would have to prove the shooting was motivated by antisemitism and not by political disagreements with or hatred toward the state of Israel.
Evidence in the case made public so far has proved that hurdle may be difficult for prosecutors to clear. In a video taken at the scene, Rodriguez can be heard shouting, “Free, free Palestine.” A letter posted to X after the shooting seemingly signed by Rodriguez expressed fury over the “atrocities committed by the Israelis against Palestine” and referenced “armed action” as a valid form of protest – one that is “the only sane thing to do.”
Rodriguez also spoke to investigators in the hours after the shooting, before he had a lawyer, one of the sources said. Court records note that Rodriguez told police after his arrest: “I did it for Palestine, I did it for Gaza.”
At the time he was initially arrested, then-acting DC US Attorney Jeanine Pirro said that the charges were “initial” and that the murder would be investigated as both an act of terrorism and a hate crime. Pirro’s handling of the case barely a week into her tenure garnered praise from both high-level DOJ officials and line prosecutors in her office, and she has since been confirmed to the post.
CNN’s Katelyn Polantz contributed to this report.
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