ST. JOHNS COUNTY, Fla. — A Ponte Vedra teenager who pleaded no contest to charges from a 2022 antisemitic attack, was sentenced to 10 years in prison with 400 days of time served in St. Johns County Friday afternoon.
Noah Amato, 19, faced several charges stemming from two incidents, including the attack.
During victim impact statements, multiple victims said the attack changed them and affected them long after. One victim's parent said her son has tried to "avoid looking Jewish" in public after the attack.
"As a mother your worst nightmare is finding out that something horrible has happened to your child ... I could never have imagined that during the Jewish holiday, my son walking with his childhood friends would experience life-threatening violence and antisemitism in our very own community," a woman testified.
In May, Amato entered into a no contest plea for charges of aggravated battery, a second-degree felony, and carrying a concealed firearm, a third-degree felony in the October 2022 attack on four Jewish teens. The teen did not enter into a no contest or guilty plea for one outstanding charge he faces in the attack - aggravated assault with a deadly weapon; he pleaded not guilty to it.
In the incident, Amato called another teenager dressed for the Jewish holiday, Sukkot, a "Jewish f*****” then pulled out a gun, which he used to strike the victim’s face, discharging the weapon, causing burns to the victim’s face," according to the incident report.
The teen’s (victim) uncle, Rabbi Nochum Kurinsky, director at Chabad Beaches, disputes that account. He previously told First Coast News his nephew, along with his two sons and a friend, were walking along Solana Road near A1A when two teens on bikes rode past, one yelling the slur.
“He yelled out something antisemitic and without hesitation was going to shoot somebody in the face, right in Ponte Vedra,” Kurinsky said.
"I hope that the court understands that what I saw on this man's face, that it was a malicious human being who enjoyed the feeling of power over somebody else... holding a gun to my face, he looked like, that's where he felt comfortable," Zalman Barrocas, one of the Jewish teens attacked, said Friday.
Kurinsky believes Amato fired the gun deliberately, not accidentally, and said the bullet grazed his nephew’s face. He and the victim’s family wanted the incident charged as a hate crime.
“I would like to see charges and I would like to see the maximum charges,” Kurinsky told First Coast News in July 2023.
The State Attorney’s Office previously said there are no hate crime charges pending.
In the second incident, Amato is being sentenced on Friday, where he entered into another no contest plea on charges of fleeing or attempting to elude and reckless driving, his arrest report states he was driving at speeds exceeding 50mph through the Publix parking lot on Racetrack Road in St. Johns County. The incident happened on July 28, 2023.
When a St. Johns County Sheriff's deputy attempted to stop Amato, the arrest report says he fled, running a red light and turning off his headlights "in an attempt to run from law enforcement."
Amato continued to speed down Racetrack Road, "swinging through both lanes and at times was at a 90 degree angle to the travel lane," the report said. Deputies used a PIT maneuver to stop his car.
"The defendant later gloated. 'If it was dry out and I could get traction, I would've been gone,'" the report states.
