Arizona man gets 4 years in prison for antisemitic death, rape threats

Federal court sentences Arizona man to more than four years in prison after he made 1,000 threats to Jewish hotel owners over their sons’ service in the IDF.

By World Israel News Staff

An Arizona man was sentenced recently to four years and one month in prison after he engaged in an aggressive campaign of antisemitic harassment against a Jewish-owned hotel in New York City.

On Thursday, Donovan Hall, 35, of Mesa, Arizona, was sentenced by the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York to 49 months in prison after he was found guilty of making interstate threats and stalking victims in New York City.

According to court filings, over the course of three months in 2024, Hall engaged in a “calculated campaign of antisemitic rhetoric,” harassing a Jewish family who owns the Blue Moon Hotel, a hotel in Manhattan, over their sons’ service in the Israeli military.

Hall also targeted hotel staff members during his campaign of harassment.

From August to November 2024, Hall made dozens of phone calls in which he made antisemitic death threats to the family and to hotel staffers.

In addition, Hall sent hundreds of threatening messages, some featuring photographs of weapons, in which he threatened to torture, mutilate, rape, and murder his intended victims.

In one message, Hall sent a photograph of two handguns, with the message, “For the Zionist cowards.”

In another, he sent a photograph of a large knife and a pistol with the caption, “This knife is for child molesters such as your son.”

Randy Settenbrino, the owner of the Blue Moon Hotel and the primary target of Hall’s death threats, described to the court the intense fear he and his family endured during the three-month period of harassment last year, noting that Hall pointed out in his threats that he was aware of the family’s home address.

“Hall contacted us over a thousand times,” Settenbrino said. “He called our business, our home, and my personal cellphone often dozens of times a day, including in the middle of the night.”

“He would say that he was outside our door or ‘on the way,’ threatening to kill us, mutilate us, and rape our staff. He repeated our home address aloud during his threats – a chilling reminder that he knew exactly where we lived. We were living in a state of relentless fear.”

Speaking with The Jerusalem Post on Monday, Settenbrino said Hall was provoked by the fact that two of Settenbrino’s sons are reservist soldiers in the IDF.