The Aftermath of Antisemitic Graffiti in Montauk and a Hate Crime Arrest and Confession

Rabbi Aizik Baumgarten, speaking about the Montauk man accused of defiling Jewish-owned businesses in the hamlet’s downtown area by spray-painting swastikas and antisemitic profanities on them, said, “That hate is being educated somewhere. That is the sad part.”

The rabbi spoke by phone on Thursday, December 7, a little more than 48 hours after the arrest of Michael Nicholoulias, 74, who police say they caught spray-painting yet more swastikas, after weeks of police investigation and surveillance, on December 5, shortly after midnight.

Baumgarten, who is the program director of Chabad of East Hampton, rents a house in Montauk every summer, where he presides over weekly Chabad. All are welcome to attend, the rabbi said.

After his arrest, Nicholoulias gave police what amounts to a full confession in a statement that he wrote out by hand, dated, initialed and signed multiple times, now on file at the East Hampton Town Justice Court.

In it, he waived his right to have an attorney present during the questioning and agreed to answer questions about the crimes, writing, “Yeah why not,” in response to the question on the document on file at the courthouse.

According to Nicholoulias’s statement, his target was those of the Jewish faith but also the U.S. government itself, for its support of Ukraine and Israel. “I wanted to make my statement,” he wrote.

His three-page statement documents his movements and actions that night in detail. He briefly notes that he expressed remorse to investigators after his arrest but takes full responsibility for the crimes.

Also on file at the East Hampton courthouse are statements from some of the victims.

One victim spoke of the cold chill of fear that went through her as she saw 2-foot-tall swastikas and the words “Jeden [sic] die” painted repeatedly across her property. “I felt completely violated,” she said.

Another restaurant owner who discovered large swastikas and the words “Jews burn” spray-painted repeatedly across the exterior of his business found it “awfully crazy and disgusting. I felt targeted because I am Jewish. The history of the swastika is hate and means death to the Jewish people. It reminds me of the Holocaust and concentration camps.”

Nicholoulias has been charged with three felonies after, authorities said, he vandalized private and public property on three occasions starting in late October, and continuing on until he was caught December 5.

The felony charges include two counts of aggravated harassment, and one of criminal mischief as a hate crime, though more felonies, including additional hate crime charges, could be in the offing once the matter is brought before a grand jury, according to District Attorney Ray Tierney.

Nicholoulias also was charged with 10 misdemeanor counts of creating unwanted graffiti, as well as a misdemeanor charge of possession of graffiti instruments — namely, a can of black spray paint, which Nicholoulias said he found in his garage.

“This is not Montauk,” Baumgarten had told the large crowd that gathered on the green in downtown Montauk for a “Love Rally” in response to the first hateful symbols discovered on October 30.

The rabbi elaborated on that point last Thursday. “In Montauk specifically, it doesn’t fit. There is something amiss between this hateful rhetoric and what Montauk represents,” he said.

Nicholoulias is not originally from Montauk, but spent many summers there with his mother, a teacher in Queens, who made the hamlet her full-time home when she retired in 1978.

Nicholoulias now lives in Montauk in a home he inherited when his mother died in 2017.

The house Nicholoulias lives in is on a cul-de-sac located close to Montauk Downs. The lawn is neatly manicured. On the front porch is a small flag bearing a skull and crossbones. According to his mother’s obituary, which ran in The East Hampton Star in 2017, Nicholoulias had a twin brother, who died many years ago.

On a page that appears to belong to Nicholoulias on the social media platform LinkedIn, it states that he speaks several languages, and describes him as a “teacher and inventor,” as well as a surfer and a mountain climber.

Repeatedly in his statement to police, he said that he was guilty of all the charges. He finished the statement by saying that he had read it in full, and that “everything in this statement is true.”

He was interviewed by police and detectives at the East Hampton Town Police headquarters in Wainscott at about 3:30 a.m. on December 5.

Baumgarten said that when he first heard about the antisemitic symbols spread across Montauk, including as far east as on the surfaces of several food trailers and a comfort station in Ditch Plains, the rabbi thought, “That’s not the way that we are in Montauk.”

He then said, “Our society is headed [to] a better place. People need to understand that we are in a much better place than we were hundreds of years ago or even 100 years ago.”

Things are getting better, the rabbi said, but “I know it is hard to see sometimes when you see the news, in all areas.” As with racism, he said, conditions are evolving for the better, though it may be hard to see. “Things are better than it was in the 1950s and 1960s.”

Antisemitism is always there, Baumgarten said. It is easy to forget that fact when things are going well, until “it is able to poke its ugly head out … but we should not be deluded,” he said.

The antidote to antisemitism is not reprisal and hatred, Baumgarten said. “Let us focus on what our message is, to spread good morals, good values and the good teachings that we have in our tradition to everyone else.

“Think of it as a call to action. More unity, more love, more spreading of the light,” he added.