NY: Woman, 49, charged with posting swastikas, flyers from alleged white supremacist group on S.I.
[I don't see how "harrassment" even comes into this. If you post a flyer, how is that "harrassment?" Jan]
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — A 49-year-old New Dorp woman was arrested and faces multiple charges in connection with anti-Semitic postings made on the borough, the district attorney’s office announced Tuesday.
Gina Aversano, a resident of the 600 block of Tysens Lane, was arraigned in Criminal Court in St. George Tuesday afternoon on two counts of first-degree aggravated harassment and four counts of making graffiti.
District Attorney Michael E. McMahon said the arrest comes after a joint investigation between his office’s Cyber Crimes Unit and the NYPD’s Racially and Ethnically Motivated Extremism Unit.
Court documents allege Aversano posted a sticker with a swastika onto a rock in Wolfe’s Pond Park on Nov. 4, 2020 before posting a second sticker featuring a swastika onto a privately-owned van near Tysens Lane in New Dorp the next day.
Then, between Dec. 31, 2020 and Jan. 1, 2021, Aversano allegedly posted flyers from the New Jersey European Heritage Association (NJEHA), a group deemed a white supremacist organization by the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League, to a Stop & Shop sign on Hylan Boulevard and a muni-meter near New Dorp Lane, authorities allege.
The Advance/SILive.com previously reported NJEHA has a small but growing presence on Staten Island and was under investigation by the district attorney’s office early last year.
In January, posters from the group found in New Dorp prompted the condemnation of faith leaders and the borough’s entire bi-partisan delegation.
Aversano was released on her own recognizance following arraignment Tuesday with the contingency that she does not use social media and avoids the owners of the property where she allegedly placed the anti-Semitic materials, said Judge Ron Castorina.
NJEHA’s main form of exposure is through the distribution of flyers and stickers, which the group encourages followers to print out and place in their neighborhoods.
The group promotes those postings on social media sites such as Gab.
Contact information for her lawyer was not immediately available on online court records.