Woman busted in NYC rabbi syringe attack allegedly stabbed another Jewish man hours earlier: report

Anna Mochalova, 32, was arrested in connection with two attacks on Jewish men in Midtown Manhattan on Wednesday. Police say both incidents are being investigated by the NYPD’s Hate Crime Task Force; the case matters amid rising hate crime figures in New York City.

At about 5.50pm, a 37-year-old man was cut on the forearm with a sharp object after a confrontation near West 45th Street and Avenue of the Americas. Around two hours later, a 26-year-old man was stabbed in the back outside West 47th Street and taken to hospital in stable condition. A newspaper identified the second victim as a rabbi and reported that a syringe was used, but police did not confirm this detail. City figures cited in the article record 463 confirmed hate crimes through September 2026, including 245 anti-Jewish incidents, compared with 242 in the same period of 2025.