Boy, 17, accused of taking part in anti-Semitic act at Boca Raton mall
By Chrystian Tejedor South Florida Sun-Sentinel Posted
May 27 2006
Boca Raton police on Friday charged a 17-year-old boy with defacing a car and a family bathroom at the Town Center mall with anti-Semitic messages on Mother's Day.
"He advised that he drew a swastika but did not write anything," Detective Juan C. Pijuan noted in the boy's arrest report.
The teenage boy, who is Jewish, was not identified by police because of his age. The boy told police that his friend, Connor T. Ranieri, 18, drew swastikas and a message that read "Burn the Jews."
It was not immediately clear who painted the swastika on the trunk of a Honda Civic parked near Sears.
"He began to tell me that Connor always does things to look cool and seek attention from his friends," Pijuan wrote.
Palm Beach County sheriff's detectives on Thursday charged Ranieri with vandalizing Yiddishkeit, a Jewish book and gift shop on U.S. 441 and Glades Road, in the same fashion on Sunday.
Ranieri drove the 17-year-old police charged Friday and another boy to the Mission Bay plaza so one of them could pick up his car.
Ranieri parked his black Saab and ran toward Yiddishkeit clutching a pen and laughing along the way, witnesses said.
Then he drew four swastikas and the racist message, police said. Ranieri also defaced a Chrysler van owned by a florist who is not Jewish, police said.
Sheriff's detectives charged Ranieri with criminal mischief evidencing prejudice, a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in the county jail.
Boca Raton police also plan to charge Ranieri with criminal mischief for defacing the Town Center mall bathroom and a car parked at the mall, but were unable to locate him after he was released from the county jail on his own recognizance, court documents show.
Ranieri, who was finishing school this year, was living in a Deerfield Beach hotel.
Boca Raton police broke the mall case after talking to the 17-year-old, a witness in Sunday's vandalism.
Police released the teen to his parents after he came to police headquarters to face his charges and wrote a letter of apology for the vandalism.
The boy said he rushed to a bathroom in the mall after eating bad food. He or Ranieri wrote a message referencing Hitler on the bathroom wall, then used pens used to write on car windshields to sketch the swastikas and write "Burn the Jews" on the bathroom's walls, police said.
Ranieri and the boy then drew swastikas on a car in the parking lot, police said.
Rachael Siegel and her mother discovered a white swastika on the trunk of their blue Honda 11 minutes after looking for tire prices at Sears.
Mall security noticed the messages written on the bathroom wall after police arrived to investigate the swastika written on Siegel's car.
"Mall security said it was vandalism but it was a hate crime," said Siegel, 19.
Chrystian Tejedor can be reached at ctejedor@sun-sentinel.com or 561-243-6645.
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