The man responsible for smearing swastikas across Brooklyn Heights and hoarding a secret cache of guns and explosives in his apartment won’t be coming back to the neighborhood any time soon.
Prosecutors announced Thursday that Ivaylo Ivanov, 39, pled guilty to multiple weapons possession and hate crime charges with the understanding that he would be sentenced to 18 years in prison.
“Its a relief to hear that,” Judy Stanton, the executive director of the Brooklyn Heights Association, said when she was told the news. “Based on everything I read this was a dangerous individual. Actually I’m a bit surprised that it took so long for this case to be adjudicated.”
Ivanov was arrested back in January, 2008 after police found an arsenal of pipe bombs and handguns, a sawed off shotgun and a hunting rifle inside his apartment.
Ivanov consented to a search of his home after he showed up at Long Island College Hospital with a gunshot wound to his hand. He claimed that he had shot himself while cleaning one of the guns.
A further investigation revealed that Ivanov had drawn swastikas on the Brooklyn Heights Synagogue and Congregation B’Nai Avraham — both on Remsen Street — as well as several other addresses during a night of hate in the fall of 2007.
The swastika attack happened just after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visited the city, officials said.
Cops charged him with spray painting swastikas on several cars, sidewalks and buildings, including the two synagogues. He also papered cars in the neighborhood with flyers containing swastikas and the words “Kill all the Jews”.
After his arrest, he admitted to scrawling the swastikas, “knowing that said actions would cause annoyance and alarm,” according to a criminal complaint.
Prosecutors said that Ivanov will receive 18 years for possessing numerous pipe bombs in his home.He will also be sentenced to an additional 15 years for possessing a 9mm handgun, with which he shot himself in the hand.In addition, Ivanov will be sentenced to one-and-a-third to four years for each count of Criminal Mischief in the Fourth Degree as a Hate Crime. All sentences will run concurrently, prosecutors said, adding that the plea arrangement was done with the consent of religious leaders of both vandalized synagogues.
Yet hate against borough Jews didn’t evaporate once Ivanov was arrested.
Just last week, residents in nearby Park Slope found strips of paper with the words “Kill the Jews” on them.
Late last year, similar sinister strips were found in Boerum Hill, Bay Ridge and Clinton Hill, officials said.
