NEW YORK _ A 37-year-old suspect nabbed in Harlem for the anti-Semitic Chanukah stabbing in Monsey, N.Y., has been transferred from an NYPD stationhouse to Rockland County to face charges.
Thomas Grafton, who lives in Greenwood Lake about 20 miles from Monsey, was charged with four counts of attempted murder and one count of burglary, officials said at a Sunday morning press conference. He was scheduled to be arraigned later Sunday in Rockland County.
A bloody machete was recovered from Grafton's vehicle, according to police sources.
Sources say Grafton has one prior arrest, which is sealed. Five people were wounded in the bloody machete rampage inside an Orthodox rabbi's home.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Sunday morning visited with the rabbi who hosted the Chanukah celebration.
"It's a very sad situation," Cuomo told reporters afterward.
"When he talks about what happened it's even more frightening than the reports you read in the newspaper."
Grafton, armed with a machete, allegedly entered the home in Monsey's Forshay neighborhood around 9:50 p.m. Saturday and stabbed five people. Three were treated and released while two remain hospitalized in serious or critical condition.
"Inexplicable," Cuomo said of the bloodshed. "Nothing said, just hate. Hate and violence, that's all it was."
The stabber tried to make a run from the rabbi's home to a synagogue next door _ but someone locked the door to keep him from going inside.
A witness who recorded the suspect's license plate and alerted authorities is credited with helping make the quick arrest possible.
License plate readers picked up the Nissan Sentra crossing the George Washington Bridge just after 11 p.m. Saturday and NYPD cops nabbed the suspect in Harlem.
Grafton lives with his father, who has an auto body shop, sources said.
Cuomo vowed to push for a first-in-the-nation new state law that would allow suspects in similar cases to be charged as domestic terrorists.
"Just because they don't come from another country doesn't mean they're not terrorists," Cuomo said. "They should be prosecuted as domestic terrorists because that's what they are."
There have been 13 anti-Semitic crimes reported across New York state since Dec. 8, officials said.
"I wish I could say it was an isolated incident," Cuomo said. "This is a national phenomenon we're seeing and it's frightening."
"It is an American cancer that is spreading in the body politic," he added. "Once we become intolerance of differences then we are intolerant with America. Because America is all about differences. We're all from some place else."
