In a packed city courtroom Wednesday, the four University of Rochester students accused of posting what officials have labeled antisemitic posters across campus made their initial appearance dressed in striped jumpsuits after spending the night in jail.
They said nothing, not guilty pleas were entered on their behalf, and the judge immediately released them on their own recognizance.
The foursome is charged with felony criminal mischief for plastering “wanted” posters across campus earlier this month that accused various faculty and staff — including UR President Sarah Mangelsdorf — of racism, censorship and supporting genocide related to the war in Gaza.
UR students and faculty, as well as a bevy of local activists, filled the courtroom gallery. Many bore keffiyehs, a traditional Palestinian scarf, draped over their shoulders.
“This is shameful,” said Basem Ashkal, a Palestinian immigrant who has long supported the protests in the Rochester area. “The college should be a place to speak out, not to be darkness.”
The students — Naomi Gutierrez, 19, Samantha Escobar, 21, Jefferson Turcios, 21, and Jonathan Bermudez, 19 — are, by all accounts, first-time offenders with resumes boasting of academic success, community service and leadership. All are charged with second-degree criminal mischief, a class D felony that carries a maximum sentence of seven years in prison.
The case has garnered international media attention, including from CNN, the Washington Post, and the Times of Israel. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-New York, condemned the students’ alleged actions as “loathsome” last week, speaking on the Senate floor, describing the posters as an attempt to intimidate and calling for “those wrongdoers (to) be held accountable.”
The posters refer to Mangelsdorf as a “liberal posturing, bourgeois feminist.” One poster also accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s brother Iddo Netanyahu of “war crimes” related to his serving in the Israel Defense Forces during the October 1973 Yom Kippur War. Netanyahu is a radiologist who in online physician rating sites is linked to a former Hornell practice affiliated with St. James Hospital, which joined the UR Medicine network in 2018.
"Dr. Iddo Netanyahu is a physician who practiced radiology in the Hornell area more than a dozen years ago. He was an independent contractor, and was never employed by St. James Hospital or the University of Rochester," read a statement from UR.
Other posters connect staff directly or indirectly to development of Israeli military technology, and settlements in the West Bank.
Mangelsdorf issued a statement last week calling the matter “disturbing, divisive and intimidating” and said it runs counter to “our values as a university." UR Department of Public Safety Chief Quchee Collins, in a statement Tuesday, described the posters as “antisemitic” and the students’ actions as “deplorable.” The department assessed whether the matter constituted a hate crime, he said, but thus far has been advised it does not.
The posters, in their entirety, were transcribed and published by The Campus Times, the UR’s student newspaper. None of the posters, as reported, mention Jewish identity directly, and not all the posters’ targets are Jewish.
Zora Gusso, a Jewish activist who came to support the students on Wednesday, said she read the posters and didn’t feel they were threatening.
“This will have a chilling effect on one of our most important democratic features,” Gusso said. “Students have always been on the forefront of what’s right and just.”
The criminal charges have little to do with the content of the posters but are based on the intent to cause damage to property at a value exceeding $1,500. UR has said the posters were applied to walls, floors, chalkboards and other surfaces with a strong adhesive that resulted in damage, when the posters were removed.
Many protesters in attendance Wednesday expressed outrage that the students were jailed overnight over the nonviolent charge.
Under the law, police did not have the discretion to issue an appearance ticket. Though a nonviolent offense, the statute required that the individuals be arrested and held for an initial appearance.
A fifth person remains under investigation and has not been named. As for the four who were arrested:
Gutierrez is a double major in data science and politics, philosophy, and economics. She also runs her own nail technician business, nanaxnails.
Escobar, a senior in clinical and translational sciences, was president of the University’s Spanish and Latino Student’s Association (SALSA), of which the other three are current or past officers. She is also a Posse Scholar, an organization that “identifies, recruits and trains individuals with extraordinary leadership potential."
And Turcios, also a Posse scholar awarded a full-ride scholarship back in 2022, was named to UR’s Emerging Leaders Program in 2023, and highlighted by UR’s Center for Community Engagement (CCE) in August for his work with multiple nonprofits. He also serves as a research assistant in pediatrics, a student aid for the Department of Public Safety, and a tutor with CCE. He is pursuing a degree in brain and cognitive sciences and health, behavior and society.
Bermudez, a Greece Olympia graduate, is a sophomore majoring in biology, and first-generation college student who recently organized a second annual domestic violence awareness event, "The Color of Bruises.”
Sarah Aljitawi, a Palestinian American and student at the university, is a friend of all four students.
“These are people that care so much about others and about their academics, and are some of the hardest workers I know, genuinely, on this campus,” Aljitawi said. “It was just really hard watching them be in this position.”
Includes reporting by Investigations and Enterprise Editor Brian Sharp.
