Ohio man who threatened Jewish neighbors gets jail term, $50K fine

Schiffer threatened that “I’ll put a bullet through your head like Hitler,” Tiffany Kinney recalled.

By The Algemeiner

A former Columbus, Ohio resident has received six months in prison, a $50,000 fine and one year of supervised release after being convicted of subjecting his Jewish neighbors to antisemitic harassment.

Douglas G. Schifer, 66, was sentenced by a federal court on Tuesday. A statement announcing the conviction from Kenneth L. Parker, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio, noted that Schifer — now a resident in Bucyrus, Ohio — “threatened neighbors and their guests because of their religion during an outdoor gathering at the neighbors’ residence on Nov. 7, 2020.”

Schifer showered guests with antisemitic abuse, telling them, “all you f***ing people, it’s no wonder Hitler burned you people in ovens,” “f***ing Hitler should have gassed you,” and “Jews burn, you belong in ovens.”

Schifer’s victims — Nick and Tiffany Kinney, a Jewish couple from California who had recently moved to the Olde Towne East neighborhood of Columbus — spoke out in March this year about their ordeal with Schifer.

Schifer had repeatedly targeted the couple, they recalled.

“He’s tired of us liberals,” Nick Kinney said of Schifer’s verbal barrage. “Horrible things about Hitler, ‘It’s no wonder Hitler burned our people’ — he knows we are Jewish.”

Schiffer threatened that “I’ll put a bullet through your head like Hitler,” Tiffany Kinney recalled.

“Real disappointing and painful, the way this man must feel about Jews,” she commented.