“This case must serve as a warning, as a wakeup call, about how vicious and divisive rhetoric and hateful propaganda can turn dangerously violent when consumed by certain people,” Westchester DA Mimi Rocah
On Nov. 16, Westchester County District Attorney Miriam E. Rocah announced that Ossining resident Robert McCallion was sentenced for brutally attacking and stabbing a Black, female teenager multiple times while shouting racial epithets and anti-Semitic slurs, and subsequently attacking a medical professional at Westchester County Jail.
McCallion, 36, was sentenced to 15 years in state prison, with five years of post-release supervision. On Sept. 9, McCallion pled guilty to 14 felony counts, including Attempted Murder in the Second Degree as a Hate Crime, and multiple counts of assault and weapons charges.
“Horrific hate crimes like this are not only acts of violence against an individual, they are crimes against entire communities. Our hearts go out to this young woman who suffered unimaginable pain and trauma, and we have been determined to secure for her the justice she is due,” DA Rocah said. “We know that hate crimes are on the rise nationally, driven by vicious and divisive rhetoric which can turn dangerously violent, and my office will continue to fight back by vigorously prosecuting those who perpetrate these despicable acts.”
On March 13, 2020, McCallion approached the 17-year-old victim at a North Highland Avenue apartment complex in Ossining where he lived and punched her in the face, knocking her to the ground. McCallion continued to punch the victim in the face, placed her into a chokehold and then attempted to gouge out both of her eyes with his thumbs. When the victim tried to escape and call for help, McCallion smashed her head into the concrete sidewalk multiple times and choked her again.
McCallion then used racial epithets and anti-Semitic slurs as he stabbed the victim many times. The victim’s father intervened and tried to stop McCallion. The attack resulted in multiple stab wounds to the victim’s face, back, flank, hands, and chest, lacerations to the kidney and eyelid, a collapsed lung, and a corneal abrasion in both eyes. The victim, who was at the apartment building visiting family, was a stranger to the defendant.
Ossining Police arrested McCallion after he was found in the parking lot of the apartment complex with blood on his hands and clothes. The knife McCallion used to stab the victim was also found at the scene. Police located the victim, who was bleeding profusely inside the apartment building where she had gone to hide from the defendant, and she was taken to the hospital where she underwent surgery.
During a search of McCallion’s apartment, where he lived with his father, police recovered multiple weapons, including two loaded assault weapons, as well as Nazi and other white nationalist paraphernalia. The FBI and the Westchester County Department of Public Safety assisted the Ossining Police Department with the investigation.
“We’re proud of the outstanding work of our Detectives together with our partners at the Office of the District Attorney, the FBI, and the Westchester County Department of Public Safety,” Ossining Police Chief Kevin Sylvester said. “It is our hope that the removal of this dangerous individual from our community will afford the victim and her family an opportunity to heal.”
On March 15, 2020, following his arrest on the Ossining incident, McCallion attacked a medical professional at Westchester County Jail in Valhalla, where he was being held. While receiving medical care, McCallion lunged at the medical professional, punched her in the head, and kicked her in the head and body, with the assault resulting in a fractured nose and a concussion.
The case was before Judge Barry Warhit in Westchester County Court, and was prosecuted by Bureau Chiefs Lana Hochheiser and Laura Murphy.
McCallion said at his sentencing, “I sincerely apologize for the events that happened that day. There’s no excuse for it. I was mentally unstable, off my mental health medication, but still that’s not an excuse.”
Judge Warhit could have sentenced McCallion to between 8-25 years in state prison. The victims name is being withheld and she did not appear at the sentencing, but wrote “I hold my head up high. I will never give up. I’m here, and I’m staying. I live.”
Rocah confirmed at her press conference that McCallion was “someone who was radicalilzed and influenced by outside influences, and he was looking at white nationalist organizations,” on his cell phone.
