Ex-Obama aide Stuart Seldowitz was cut loose Thursday after being charged with a hate crime for directing a now-viral Islamophobic rant at a Big Apple halal cart vendor.
The court let Seldowitz, 64, walk on supervised release after charging him with two counts of stalking as a hate crime and one count of aggravated harassment at his Thanksgiving Day arraignment, according to the criminal complaint.
The verbal assault — in which Seldowitz told Upper East Side vendor Mohamed Hussein he was a terrorist and supported killing kids, among other things — was “unprovoked and unwarranted,” Assistant District Attorney Jordan Gwynn told the court.
But the former diplomat’s attorney, Scott Bookstein, claimed his client was “not a warmonger and an Islamophobe” despite his shocking rant.
“He’s a peace-loving person, devoid of hate from Muslims or anyone else,” Bookstein said, adding the allegations contained “a lot of ugly words.”
“I want the court, the prosecution, the media and the public to know that the allegations attributed to my client are 100% antithetical to who Stuart Seldowitz is — what his core beliefs…
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