The trial of the man who tried to kidnap Elie Wiesel to “force” him to recant his Holocaust testimony has begun with an apology.
A man charged with dragging Holocaust scholar Elie Wiesel from a hotel elevator apologized in court Monday to the Nobel laureate over the attack.
Eric Hunt, 22, has pleaded not guilty to charges of attempted kidnapping, false imprisonment, battery, stalking, elder abuse and hate crimes following the February incident at San Francisco’s Argent Hotel.
The apology came in the midst of a hearing to determine whether Hunt, who originally pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity but later changed his plea, should stand trial.
Hunt raised a shaking hand and spoke up suddenly from his seat next to his lawyer just as Wiesel had finished describing his ordeal in Nazi death camps, where his parents and sister died.
“Mr. Wiesel, I’m sorry for scaring you and I’m sorry you experienced the Holocaust,” Hunt said. “My grandfather fought the Nazis and I’m sorry about what happened.”
Wiesel did not respond but went on to describe the Feb. 1 incident in which he said Hunt grabbed him from the elevator and demanded that the 78-year-old professor come to his room for an interview.
And here’s where my readers are going to be very surprised: I think there’s more to the story than a neo-Nazi stalking and frightening Elie Wiesel.
Hunt, of Vernon, N.J., has been in a San Francisco jail psychiatric ward since May, when he was flown to California to face the charges.
His lawyer, San Francisco defense attorney John Runfola, said in an interview Monday that prosecutors had “overcharged” his client.
Hunt is not an anti-Semitic stalker, but a man suffering from mental illness, Runfola said. When he confronted Wiesel, he was in the grip of a “manic episode” triggered by his grandfather’s death, he said.
The defense has sent the results of a psychiatrist’s evaluation to Wiesel along with 20 letters from Hunt’s family, friends and teachers describing the incident as deeply out of character for the high school honor student and college graduate, Runfola said.
I know a lot of people think that it’s easy to fake mental illness, but it’s not. And the single thing that is setting off my feeling that there is more to this story is the age of the perpetrator. He’s 22. Schizophrenia strikes young men in their twenties. They are perfectly normal until then, and suddenly become a complete stranger to what they were. And I know this because I know a family that has schizophrenia, and I was attacked by my friend’s sister, who was obsessed with a conspiracy of Jews trying to kill her (her ex-husband was Jewish). And because one of my closest friends is a psych nurse with more than twenty years experience. We talk about crazy people a lot.
Mind you, I’m not this kid’s doctor, or his lawyer—but I am willing to hear more about this case before signing off on Hunt being just another Jew-hater.
Meryl as a crazy person (who is getting well) I applaud your post !
I dunno. I went from life-long Democrat to voting for Bush in the last election, as my still-Democrat friends and family followed the “progressives” right into the depths of anti-Zionism.
They think I’ve gone schizo. I don’t think I’ve actually changed so much, but rather that they have; but then, isn’t that what all schizoes think?
Tat, if you’ve never come into contact with someone in full-blown paranoid schizophrenic mode, just be thankful.
It took my friend and I ten minutes to literally beat her sister off me. She had an iron grip on my hair and would not let go. She gave no warning, said not a word, just simply attacked me.
Schizophrenia isn’t very funny in reality. It’s quite frightening, and crazy people tend to be strong. They don’t feel pain like you and I.
She ultimately did get the help she needed, and has been on medication that allows her to live a relatively normal life. If Hunt is schizophrenic, I’m sure his doctors will figure it out.
I know a couple of people who are diagnosed Schizophrenics. They are both male and both got it in their twenties.
Maybe it is true. It feels better to blame it on being mentally ill than to believe that it is based on antisemitism, but…
That’s why I said I want to know more before making up my mind. This doesn’t seem to be a simple case of anti-Semitism.
I used to have a friend who was wildly bipolor, compounded with psychosis disorders when in manic mode. More than once when she’d forgotten her meds or the balance was off she’d call me in the middle of the night to tell me the Nazis were coming to get her and she was afraid for her life. She was in her late twenties.
I’d have to get her to talk to me rationally enough to find out if she’d taken too much or not enough, if any at all, of her medications, talk her in to taking what she needed to take, and then just figuratively hold her hand until the meds kicked in and she was out of the crazies.
I’m very empathetic with the mentally ill.
“Tat, if you’ve never come into contact with someone in full-blown paranoid schizophrenic mode, just be thankful.”
I spent a month in a funny farm thanks to my guidance counselor. Learning to recognize the signs of an impending attack was a survival skill I developed pretty quickly.
I guess empathy wasn’t one of the things I learned there.