BUFFALO, N.Y. (WBEN) – An Amherst man has been charged with a hate crime after harassing a male of the Jewish faith and his family in late 2019. At the same time, another man is facing up to 15 years in prison after he tried to set the Amherst family’s home on fire in December.
Christian McCaffrey was charged with aggravated harassment over a four-month period beginning last August. McCaffrey, 19, harassed the male acquaintance that involved him hurling a derogatory slur at the victim.
“The proof that I have right now is related to Mr. Bruscia,” Flynn said. “At this point, I can’t even confirm or deny whether or not Mr. McCaffrey was with Mr. Bruscia on the night of the arson.”
McCaffrey and his attorney had no comment as they left the courtroom on Monday. Bruscia was arraigned virtually.
The arson damaged the home of Cantor Penny Myers and Dr. Bennett Myers of Amherst. They spoke to reporters following the arraignments. Penny Myers said that McCaffrey “embarked on a harassment campaign” against their son, whose name we will not identify because of his age.
“Over the course of last fall, the threats escalated so that in December, he threatened to come to my home and murder my entire family,” Penny Myers, who is also a clergy leader at Temple Beth Zion in Buffalo, said. “On the morning of December 22, 2019, at the beginning of our festival of Hanukkah, he sought to make good on that threat, aided and abetted by Mr. Dean Bruscia, an already prior convicted felony. They attempted to burn down my house and an incendiary device was shot through the window of my dining room, where it deflected off of Baker’s Rack before landing on our dining room table. There, it became meshed with Sabbath table cloths that had belonged to our children’s great grandmother, igniting them and shattering the glass tabletop.”
Myers described their actions as an attempted of a “cold-blooded murder”.
In the courtroom, Penny Myers was reading from a book with psalms. She said she was reading this during McCaffrey’s arraignment so that her anger and emotions could be redirected.
“It’s hard being in quarantine in a house that is still damaged,” she said. “As a woman and a clergy leader of the largest synagogue here and people are afraid to come to the synagogue after this happened. I rely on psalms.”
The Myers family and Flynn are calling on additional state reforms to the bail laws because both Bruscia and McCaffrey are out of custody without bail. There is an order of protection for the family.