No Hate Crime Charges? NJ White Lives Matter Associates Face Minor Charges, One Gets a Dismissal

This story includes an hour-long video of the arrests of the three White Lives Matter stooges and makes it very clear what they were there for. Communities have demanded action against this. Here’s the chance for some.

SOMERVILLE, NJ – The three associates of White Lives Matter arrested Nov. 27 after they were reportedly seen posting racist stickers have not been charged with a hate crime to date, but two of them have a court date set for June 6, while the third received a conditional dismissal of his charges including the weapons charge he had after he was found with a large can of pepper spray that was above the legal limit allowed.

Steve V. Koshlyak of Delanco, New Jersey and Zackerji I. Ivanovic of Union Beach, New Jersey both obtained public defenders after their court appearances earlier this month and are face charges of criminal mischief. In police body camera footage of the arrest obtained by Idavox, Koshlyak is heard telling a police officer that he did not post any of the stickers nor did he know the third person arrested, Claudino G. Petruccelli of Wyckoff, New Jersey, even though he was with Petruccelli the week before in Princeton, New Jersey attempting to post stickers there as well. Petruccelli was in court on April 18, and in addition to the conditional dismissal, he received a year of probation. His weapons charge was dismissed at the county level.

In the body camera footage, the three are seen being questioned by police while holding the stickers that read White Lives Matter. Later in the footage other stickers are seen that read “Who owned the slave ships?” – a reference to the neo-Nazi narrative that Jews were responsible for the slave trade – and “Never Slacken 88”. 88 is a numeric code for “Heil Hitler”, 8 being representative of the letter H, the 8^th letter in the alphabet. The officer speaking to Koshlyak notes to him that while they could make the issue “go away” if they were to take the stickers down from the signs they were posted on, the Somerset County prosecutor could file hate crime charges due to the nature of the stickers. New Jersey laws define hate crimes as any suspected or confirmed offense or unlawful act which occurs against a person or property, be it public or private, on the basis of race, color, religion, gender, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, and national origin. Despite this, Petruccelli, Koshlyak or Ivanovic have not been charged with any hate crimes.

Associates of White Lives Matter have stickered the area several times since, according to their Telegram page. One time was after an appearance in nearby Bridgewater after activist Al Sharpton held a rally to show support for Z’Kye Husain, the Black child who in a fight with a Hispanic child at the Bridgewater Commons mall but was the one handcuffed by police while the Hispanic child who looked White was told to sit on a couch. This kind of activity has been such a concern that residents held events in the past to address such stickers and flyers in their communities.

Idavox reached out to the Somerville County Prosecutor’s office to inquire about possible hate crimes charges but the office did not respond.