MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — A Jackson man has pleaded guilty to a federal civil rights charge, admitting that he defaced a Torah and religious prayer books.
The Commercial Appeal reports 25-year-old Justin Shawn Baker entered the plea Monday in court.
U.S. Attorney Edward L. Stanton said in a statement that Baker spit on a Torah and defaced it with satanic and anti-Semitic phrases.
Students and faculty at the Margolin Hebrew Academy in Memphis were staying at the Doubletree Hotel in Jackson on Jan. 12 and had used a meeting room to conduct a Sabbath worship. They left the items in the room overnight with plans to resume worship the next morning.
They arrived to find the items defaced.
Baker was working at the hotel at the time as a security guard.
