A 32-year-old Brooklyn woman accused of stalking a rabbi before stabbing him with a syringe in Manhattan's Diamond District is also suspected of attacking another man just two hours earlier, police said. Anna Mochalova was arrested Saturday evening and charged with eight counts each of assault and menacing, two counts each of aggravated harassment and criminal possession of a weapon, according to police confirmed to Fox News Digital.
The first attack was reported at about 5:50 p.m. Wednesday at West 45th Street and Avenue of the Americas. A 37-year-old man told officers a person deliberately collided with him, and when he confronted the person, he was struck in the forearm with a sharp object, suffering a laceration. The attacker fled on foot, and the victim declined medical attention at the scene.
About two hours later, police responded to a reported stabbing outside 15 West 47th Street. A 26-year-old man had been approached and stabbed in the back with an unknown sharp object. He was taken to Bellevue Hospital in stable condition. The New York Post identified the second victim as a rabbi and reported that the attacker used a syringe. Police did not specify in their statement whether a syringe was used or what it may have contained.
Surveillance video shared by the Manhattan Shomrim Safety Patrol shows the suspected attacker following the rabbi around a parked car as he tried to avoid her before the stabbing, according to the Post. The rabbi told the outlet he believes his appearance made him a target. « I never met that person before, » he said. « She passes by other people. I'm visibly Jewish. »
Despite the attack, the rabbi returned to the area the next day to continue Jewish outreach, the Post reported. He credited his grandparents, who survived the Holocaust, with inspiring him to return. « They went on to build a Jewish home after the Holocaust, » he told the outlet. « If they could survive, I must go back to spread the light. »
Manhattan Shomrim credited its volunteers, the NYPD's Hate Crimes Task Force, Shomrim groups in Crown Heights and Queens, and public tips with helping secure the arrest. The group had made a public appeal for witnesses and security camera, dashcam or cellphone video from the Diamond District. « The suspect wanted for Wednesday's two hate crime assaults in Midtown Manhattan is now in custody, » the group wrote on X.
The attacks come as confirmed hate crimes across New York City rose nearly 13 percent during the first nine months of this year compared with the same period last year, according to NYPD figures. Anti-Jewish incidents accounted for more than half of the city's 463 confirmed hate crimes, with 245 recorded through September, up from 242 during the same period in 2025. The NYPD confirmed its Hate Crime Task Force is investigating both incidents. Advocacy group StopAntisemitism condemned the reported attack, asking on X: « What has happened to NYC, a once safe haven for Jews? »