For two years, Joseph Czuba, had a friendly relationship with his Palestinian American tenants in Plainfield, Illinois. But after the war on Gaza ignited, a switch flipped.
Days after October 7, 2023, Czuba told his tenant Hanan Shaheen that she needed to move out, citing the war, and insinuated she was dangerous, Czuba’s ex-wife testified. On the morning of October 14, Shaheen later told investigators that Czuba said he was angry at her for what was happening in Jerusalem. “Let’s pray for peace,” Shaheen responded.
That day, Czuba attacked her and her 6-year-old son with a knife, saying “You, as a Muslim, must die,” Shaheen recalled in testimony this week. Stabbed more than a dozen times, Shaheen escaped to the bathroom and called 911. Czuba then attacked her son, Wadee Alfayoumi, stabbing him 26 times across his body. Alfayoumi did not survive.
An Illinois jury on Friday convicted Czuba, 73, of first-degree murder, attempted murder, aggravated battery, and hate crimes, bringing to a close one of the most shocking hate crime trials to shake the nation after the war on Gaza broke out. He faces up to life in prison.
Czuba’s hateful comments about Palestinians and Muslims took center stage in the trial this week at Will County Courthouse, about 45 miles southwest of Chicago. It included testimony from about 20 witnesses, police footage, and 911 call recordings.
Hate crimes are notoriously difficult to prosecute, but experts say damning evidence of both the killing and the motive in this case likely paved the way for a guilty verdict.
Jeannine Bell, a law and social justice professor at Loyola University Chicago, said there is “abundant evidence” of Czuba’s motivation based on the gruesome nature of the assault and his comments expressing anti-Palestinianism and Islamophobia.
In the final stretch of the trial Thursday, prosecutors played a clip of Czuba’s comments about Arabs and Muslims after the stabbing.
“I can’t believe all the protests of people that are supporting PLO,” Czuba said in a video from the back of a patrol car, referring to the Palestine Liberation Organization. “It’s so evil.”
“They are just like infested rats,” he said.
Czuba said that he was afraid for his life and for his wife. He said he was trying to help Shaheen out, and that she couldn’t afford a house. “Didn’t tell me she is a Muslim.”
Czuba said he “begged” Shaheen to “get out for three days,” and she wouldn’t leave. At one point, he said she was a “trained fighter.” “Let me tell you she was a problem.”
Czuba’s attorney, George Lenard, attempted to poke holes in the prosecutions and the police investigation, and argued that just because his client dislikes the PLO does not mean he is hateful.
Abed Ayoub, director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee who has been involved in civil rights advocacy for about two decades, says the common thread in hate-fueled instances is ignorance, and attackers are often people who are easily “radicalized.”
“We need to pay attention in this country to what is driving these …individuals to do this, to commit these crimes, and it’s no secret. It’s the hate rhetoric itself,” Ayoub said.
In Czuba’s case, prosecutors said he had shown a deep interest in the war abroad and had been listening to conservative talk radio.
Ayoub noted he has also seen a rise in anti-Palestinianism and Islamophobia from media and politicians across the spectrum since the war on Gaza began.
“Now we’re seeing it in the open,” he said.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations, a nonprofit civil rights organization, tracked a dramatic rise in complaints in wake of Israel’s assault on Gaza. The organization said it documented 8,061 complaints in 2023 — nearly half of which were from the last three months — the highest tally CAIR has recorded since its founding in 1994.
Bell, of Loyola University, noted similar spikes in hate crimes at two points since the turn of the century: after the September 11, 2001, terror attacks, and during the first election of President Donald Trump.
The trial comes amid an attack on civil rights legislation. Trump effectively ordered a freeze on the Justice Department’s current civil rights prosecution and banning new cases. If the order remains in place, one expert says people will have to rely on a patchwork of state laws in hate crime cases.
“Our hate crimes law enforcement system simply is dysfunctional, or non-functional, and has-been.”
“That means that we cannot rely on the federal government to prosecute hate crimes, and so states are going to have to do it for there to be meaningful prosecution of hate crimes,” said Richard Wilson, a law and anthropology professor at the University of Connecticut.
Most cases are tried in state court, and hate crime laws vary significantly across the U.S. Removing federal litigation could have major consequences, especially in jurisdictions with weak protections, Wilson said. Washington state and New York, for instance, have a rigorous prosecution record; South Carolina and Wyoming do not, he said.
“Our hate crimes law enforcement system simply is dysfunctional, or non-functional, and has-been,” Wilson said.
While convictions like Czuba’s show the importance of state law, the federal retreat poses a major problem. “The conclusion has to be that we tolerate hate crimes,” Wilson said.
