DEAL, NJ – Acting Monmouth County Prosecutor Lori Linskey has added a bias crime charge against Nicholas Skirvin, 44, of Denville, who was also charged with making terroristic threats and shouting anti-Semitic slurs at congregants at a Jersey Shore Synagogue on Friday.
“Members of the Deal Police Department responded to the Ohel Yaacob Congregation at the corner of Lawrence Avenue and Ocean Avenue North at approximately 1 p.m. on Friday, July 15 on a report of an unknown person recording himself with a cell phone while making obscene gestures and screaming profanity-laced ethnic and homophobic slurs and threats at synagogue congregants,” police said.
Police said, “A fast-moving investigation resulted in Skirvin being identified as a suspect in the case, and he was arrested by members of the Deal Police Department on a beach in nearby Asbury Park later the same afternoon. He was subsequently transported to the Monmouth County Correctional Institution (MCCI) pending a detention hearing that is now tentatively scheduled to take place on Monday, July 25, before Monmouth County Superior Court Judge Paul Escandon.”
The state is filing a motion to keep Skirvin detained pending the outcome of the case.
“The hate-filled rhetoric heard last Friday in what is typically a peaceful neighborhood with a tight-knit Jewish community wasn’t just abhorrent and disturbing – it was criminal,” Acting Prosecutor Linskey said. “The charges being announced today should send a clear message that we take such conduct with the utmost seriousness. There is no place for hate in Monmouth County – especially when it is the motive behind a crime.”