Suspect Gets 30 Years in Florida Mosque Fire
Joseph Schreiber pleaded no contest during Monday’s hearing before Circuit Judge Steven Levin. A no contest plea is treated as a guilty plea. Schreiber was also ordered to pay $10,000 in restitution although damages exceeded $100,000. Because he was declared a habitual offender, he could have received a life sentence.
He had confessed to detectives that he set fire to the Islamic Center of Fort Pierce on Sept. 11, the 15th anniversary of the 2001 terrorist attacks, AP reported. Damage to the mosque was so extensive that the leaders recently announced it will be moved.
Schreiber, who is Jewish, posted on Facebook in July that "All Islam is radical” and that "all Muslims should be treated as terrorists and criminals.”
Prosecutor Steve Gosnell said Schreiber, 32, confessed to detectives that he set the fire, saying he believed Muslims "are trying to infiltrate our government” and that "the teaching of Islam should be completely, completely illegal.”
Before he was sentenced, Schreiber read a statement titled "From the Mountaintops, Stop the Killings,” where he claimed the fire was not caused by hate but anxiety.
Schreiber then turned to a man he thought was the mosque’s imam and apologized.
"In the Islamic faith and in all faiths, we believe that God is merciful and just as we want to be forgiven by him we should also forgive,” mosque member Mohammad Malik said after the hearing. "I believe he was misled. Misled by fear-mongering, misled by false information” about Islam. Malik said the "bright spot” of the fire is that the local Jewish and Islamic communities are now communicating.
