The serial flusher responsible for two Koran toilet dunkings at Pace University has pleaded guilty and been sentenced to 300 hours of community service. Stanislav Shmulevich, a Russian immigrant, was a business major at the time of the incidents, in which a copy of the Koran was twice discovered in the toilet – the first time "covered in feces" – in October and November 2006.
Shmulevich remained at large until last summer, when police connected him to surveillance footage outside a meditation room from which the Korans were stolen. He was initially charged with criminal mischief as a hate crime, a felony punishable by up to four years in prison. Shmulevich reportedly told detectives that "he committed the acts out of anger toward a group of Muslim students with whom he had a recent disagreement."
Since the charge was plea-bargained down to disorderly conduct, Shmulevich’s lawyer was free to assert yesterday that “there was no hate crime here." Many conservative pundits wholeheartedly agreed; after all, it's not like Shmulevich desecrated a Bible or crucifix.
