Man sentenced to 1 year in prison in death of Jewish man during dueling protests

A protester who pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the death of an elderly Jewish man during a 2023 demonstration in California over the war in Gaza was sentenced this week to one year in county jail, prosecutors said.

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Paul Kessler , 69, fell and hit his head during a confrontation with the protester, Loay Alnaji, 53, on a street corner in Thousand Oaks near Los Angeles on Nov. 5, 2023. Kessler died the next day.

Alnaji was part of a pro-Palestinian group protesting over the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza and Kessler was demonstrating in support of Israel, authorities have said.

Alnaji called 911 and stayed at the scene after the fall, officials said.

The Ventura County District Attorney’s Office said Alnaji “escalated a verbal altercation to a physical confrontation” with Kessler and that Alnaji struck Kessler in the head with a megaphone.

The prosecutor’s office said it argued for a sentence in state prison and objected to the sentence of one year in county jail and two years of probation that was imposed Tuesday.

Alnaji pleaded guilty on May 5 to involuntary manslaughter and battery causing serious bodily injury, both felonies, as well as a special allegation of causing great bodily injury, the district attorney’s office said.

“Mr. Kessler lost his life in a violent attack that took him from his family and his wife of 43 years,” Ventura County District Attorney Erik Nasarenko said in a statement . “Given the circumstances of this case and the death that resulted, we believe a state prison commitment was the appropriate and just sentence.”

The altercation and Kessler’s death came as protests were occurring around the United States over Israel’s war in Gaza, which it launched after the Hamas-led attack against Israel in October 2023.

Kessler’s widow wrote in a victim’s impact statement that “there are no words to describe the pain of losing a husband in such a sudden and violent way,” according to the district attorney’s office.

“The grief is relentless. The silence in our house, the absence of his voice, his companionship, his love and the future we had planned together are losses I carry with me everyday,” she wrote, according to the office.

Alnaji’s attorney Ron Bamieh said it was an accident and that Alnaji moved to swat Kessler’s phone away from his face and unintentionally hit Kessler with the megaphone, the Ventura Daily Star reported Tuesday after the sentencing.

“The rules do support a grant of probation in this case,” Ventura County Superior Court Judge Derek Malan said at sentencing, according to the newspaper. The judge also told the audience at the hearing that the charges filed did not allege an intentional killing or a hate crime, it reported.