A Lyft driver faced federal hate crime charges for punching a Jewish rider at SFO in the early weeks of the Israel-Hamas conflict, but a federal jury just ruled that it was not a hate crime, and the accused is off the hook.
In the very tense period of late October 2023, just a few weeks after the Hamas attack on Israel and the sustained Israeli counterattack started, a man complained that his Lyft driver punched him for being Jewish during an SFO ride-hail. And five months later, the US Department of Justice brought hate crime charges against that now-former Lyft driver, Csaba John Csukas.
“I assume he saw my Jewish name. You don’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to figure it out,” the Jewish victim, who identified himself only as “SB” for fear of retribution, told the Jewish News of Northern California. “He said something like, ‘I don’t want Israelis in my car,’ and punched me in the ear. Very strong.”
Though the Jewish News of Northern California just reported that Csukas was found not guilty of the hate crime charges after a jury trial in the US District Court for the Northern District of California.
Bloomberg has some details of Csukas’s defense that helped him beat the case. His attorneys argued that JB insulted him first, leading to the punch. Csukas’ attorneys also argued his fiancé is Palestinian, and that he was experiencing significant financial and personal duress because of the Israeli counterstrikes.
But it may have been that the hate crime came with such a heavy burden of proof. The feds did not convince the jury that the punch was motivated by racial bias or hatred.
Csukas did lose his job driving with Lyft over the incident. But ultimately, he will not face more criminal proceedings for throwing the punch. San Mateo County District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe said in a statement to the Jewish News that “no person can be subject to a second prosecution following an acquittal for the same conduct.”
Image: The San Francisco International airport or SFO at dusk (Getty Images)
