Anna Mochalova

Charged, not convicted. Mochalova faces criminal charges — including assault as a hate crime — that no court has tested. She was awaiting arraignment in Manhattan Criminal Court as of Sunday, October 25, 2026, is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, and no conviction has been entered.

Introduction

Anna Mochalova, a 32-year-old Brooklyn woman, was arrested on Saturday, October 24, 2026, and charged with a slate of offenses including assault as a hate crime for stalking a 26-year-old rabbi through Midtown Manhattan’s Diamond District and jabbing him in the back with a syringe — and, police say, for attacking a second Jewish man on the street hours before. An NYPD spokesperson said she was taken into custody at 6:30 p.m. Saturday within the confines of the Midtown North Precinct, and was charged with eight counts of assault, eight counts of menacing, two counts of aggravated harassment and two counts of criminal possession of a weapon. Both incidents are being investigated by the NYPD’s Hate Crimes Task Force as antisemitic attacks.

Background Information

Public reporting on Mochalova is limited to the New York Police Department’s account of the two attacks and the arrest; she is described in charging coverage only by her age and her Brooklyn residence, and no statement from her or an attorney for her appears in press accounts. The stabbing she is charged in took place on Wednesday evening, October 21, shortly before 6 p.m., near West 47th Street and Fifth Avenue. Officers responded to a 911 call and found a 26-year-old man — identified in Jewish-community reporting as Yosef, a Chabad rabbinical student from Crown Heights — who had been approached from behind and stabbed in the lower back with what investigators believe was a needle or syringe. He was taken to Bellevue Hospital in stable condition and was later released.

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation

Charged, not convicted. The conduct described here is alleged in criminal charging documents and police statements. Mochalova has not been tried, and nothing described here has been adjudicated in court.

According to the charges as reported by the New York Post, Mochalova spent the early evening of October 21 stalking the visibly Jewish victim — surveillance footage posted on X by the Manhattan Shomrim safety patrol shows the suspect trailing the rabbi, who was wearing traditional Orthodox garb, around a parked car as he tried to avoid her — before jabbing him in the back with a needle near West 47th Street and Fifth Avenue around 6 p.m. Surveillance footage reviewed by JNS appeared to show the attacker approaching the victim from behind, stabbing him and fleeing. ABC7 reported that the encounter began near 580 Fifth Avenue in the Diamond District and ended near West 47th Street, with the victim telling investigators a woman who was speaking Russian had followed him before he felt a sharp, needle-like prick in his lower back.

Two hours earlier, according to police, Mochalova deliberately bumped into a 37-year-old Jewish man on West 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue; when he confronted her, she spoke Russian and then stabbed him in the arm with a sharp object, police said. Both attacks are being investigated by the Hate Crimes Task Force as antisemitic incidents, and the victim told the Post he believes he was targeted because he is “visibly Jewish”: “I never met that person before. She passes by other people. I’m visibly Jewish.”

Mochalova was charged with twenty counts — eight of assault, eight of menacing, two of aggravated harassment and two of criminal possession of a weapon, per the NYPD spokesperson — and the Post reported that the assault charges include assault as a hate crime; the spokesperson did not specify which counts carry hate-crime enhancements.

Public Reaction and Consequences

The arrest closed a four-day manhunt that Manhattan Shomrim had run in public. “Thanks to the tireless dedication of our members working alongside the NYPD Hate Crimes Task Force, our partners at Crown Heights Shomrim and Queens Shomrim, and the crucial tips called in to our hotline by the public, the suspect wanted for Wednesday’s two hate crime assaults in Midtown Manhattan is now in custody,” the patrol announced Saturday night.

The victim’s own response drew wide attention: the day after the stabbing, he returned to the Diamond District to continue his regular street outreach, helping Jewish men put on tefillin, and told the Post his Holocaust-survivor grandparents inspired him — “They went on to build a Jewish home after the Holocaust. If they could survive, I must go back to spread the light.” The attack landed amid a documented surge: NYPD figures released October 6 show Jewish New Yorkers were the targets of 245 of the city’s 463 confirmed hate crimes in the first nine months of 2026 — 53 percent — and the Post reported hate crimes rose nearly 13 percent citywide over that span, with anti-Jewish incidents comprising more than half.

Current Status

Mochalova was awaiting arraignment in Manhattan Criminal Court as of Sunday, October 25, 2026, and no plea had been entered; no attorney of record for her appears in press coverage. She is charged with twenty counts spanning both October 21 attacks, which the Hate Crimes Task Force is investigating as antisemitic; the hate-crime designation on the assault counts is per the Post’s report, while the NYPD spokesperson who listed the counts did not specify the enhancements. All charges remain allegations, and nothing described here has been tested in court.

Impact on Their Career/Life

Mochalova’s exposure is now defined by the twenty-count complaint she faces: the charges span two separate attacks on Jewish victims on the same evening, one of them, per the Post’s report, charged as a hate-crime assault, and a conviction on any of them would carry a criminal record built on those findings. For the city’s Jewish community, the case became a flashpoint in a year when more than half of all confirmed New York City hate crimes targeted Jewish people, and the visible response — a volunteer patrol manhunt, a rabbi who returned to the same corner the next day — has kept the attack in public view through the weekend.

Sources

New York Post, “Maniac busted for stabbing rabbi with syringe in NYC — as cops reveal she attacked another Jewish victim hours earlier,” October 25, 2026 — source
JNS via Cleveland Jewish News, “Woman charged in stabbing of Jewish man in Manhattan’s Diamond District,” October 25, 2026 — source
COLlive, “Suspect Arrested in Attack on Crown Heights Bochur in Manhattan,” October 24, 2026 — source
ABC 7 New York (WABC), “Suspected needle attack on Jewish man investigated as possible hate crime,” October 22, 2026 — source