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Ray Lazier Lengend
By Forum Staff
A Queens Village man has been sentenced to 18 years and 10 months in prison, to be followed by three years’ supervised release, for firebombing five borough buildings in 2012, including a Shiite mosque, the Imam Al-Khoei Foundation in Jamaica, and a private residence that housed a Hindu temple, federal prosecutors announced on Thursday.
Ray Lazier Lengend, 46, pleaded guilty in December 2017 to two counts of hate crimes through the use of fire and explosives.
According to authorities, Lengend went on his hate-fueled spree on Jan. 1, 2012, bombing the houses of worship with Molotov cocktails. Lengend was arrested the next day, at which time he told law enforcement officers that he hated Arabs, Muslims and Middle Easterners. With respect to the mosque bombing, Lengend stated that he had intended to “take out as many Arabs as possible.” No one was injured in the attacks.
Lengend was prosecuted in a parallel proceeding in State Supreme Court in Queens, and pleaded guilty to attempted arson as a hate crime and was sentenced to 20 years’ imprisonment in October 2017. Thursday’s sentence will run concurrent with the state sentence, federal officials noted.
“In 2012, Lengend, motivated by hate, fire-bombed five buildings in Queens with the intent to kill or maim innocent people simply because of their religion or national origins,”said Federal Bureau of Investigation NY Assistant Director-in-Charge Bill Sweeney. “Today, he learned the consequences of his despicable actions.”
