A Kitchener man who sent threats to a synagogue, a rabbi and two Jewish citizens was sentenced Monday to 18 months in jail.
Ralph Boeck, 59, had been found guilty of three counts of harassment a few weeks earlier.
Court heard that Boeck had made email threats against Kitchener’s Beth Jacob Congregation, then against its rabbi via the telephone.
“We started to receive phone messages that were vile … messages that Adolf Hitler was correct, that we should leave this country or else,” Rabbi Nevo Zuckerman said following Monday’s sentencing.
Additionally, he threatened two lawyers who he believed to be Jewish after finding their names in the phone book. (One of them was Jewish; the other was not.)
Boeck is a member of a white supremacy group known as the New Constitution of Canada.
The Crown had been asking for a two-year sentence for Boeck, whose lawyer had argued that a nine-month sentence was appropriate.
Given an opportunity to apologize in court, Boeck said he never meant to harm or threaten anybody, and thought he was only asking questions about the Jewish faith.
With credit for time already served, Boeck will be released from jail in nine months.
