Two arrested in graffiti attack on Long Island synagogue

A member of a white supremacist group and a teenage accomplice were arrested on charges of scrawling swastikas and other anti-Semitic graffiti on the side of a synagogue and on a school bus, a school and a house, police said Sunday.

Swastikas and Jewish slurs scrawled in red spray paint were found Saturday on the Reconstructionist Synagogue of the North Shore in Plandome, on a school bus parked at Roslyn High School and on a Roslyn Estates home, police said. Graffiti also was found at a nearby elementary school.

Police on Saturday arrested John Rocissano, 20, and Matthew Felicetti, 17, in all four incidents. Rocissano, of Manhasset, and Felicetti, of Floral Park, were to be arraigned Sunday on several counts of aggravated harassment and criminal mischief.

Police didn’t know who their lawyers were, and their home telephone numbers were unlisted.

Rocissano admitted being a member of the National Alliance, a white supremacist group that has been in decline since the 2002 death of its founder, William Pierce, said Detective Sgt. Gary Shapiro, of the Nassau County police bias crimes unit.

The graffiti on the synagogue included a life rune, a symbol like an upturned pitchfork used by the National Alliance, Shapiro said.

The synagogue’s rabbi, Lee Friedlander, said, “This was an act against Jews, but it could be an act against people of color or people who are gay.”

He said he could not recall another instance of vandalism at the house of worship.

Also on Saturday, a Roslyn High School security guard discovered a swastika painted on a bus, police said, and a Roslyn resident came home to find three of the Nazi-related symbols painted on his front door.

Graffiti also was found at Munsey Park Elementary School in Manhasset.

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