Feds Hit Robert Bowers, Alleged Pittsburgh Synagogue Shooter, With 19 New Charges
Federal authorities hit a white supremacist accused of murdering 11 Jews at a Pittsburgh synagogue with more than a dozen new charges on Tuesday.
Robert Bowers, 46, allegedly opened fire on the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh in October and made made anti-Semitic comments on the extremist-friendly social network Gab shortly before the attack. He was charged in federal court that month with dozens of offenses including 11 murder charges. Feds added 19 new charges on Tuesday, including 11 counts of hate crimes resulting in death and two counts of hate crimes involving attempted murder, as well as several others. All told, Bowers faces 63 criminal counts.
Bowers called Jewish people “the children of Satan” in his Gab profile. In the days before the shooting, Bowers authored increasingly anti-Semitic posts. On October 10, he posted about the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS), a Jewish charity that was hosting charity events for immigrants. One of the events was at the Dor Hadash congregation. Dor Hadash and another Jewish congregation share the same Pittsburgh synagogue as Tree of Life, according to Tuesday’s superseding indictment filed in federal court.
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