Robert Brum, Frank Esposito, Chris McKenna

The Journal News

The man accused of the machete attack on a Monsey rabbi's Haunukkah party has a long-standing history of mental illness, including diagnoses of paranoid schizophrenia with warning signs that have been ignored by authorities for years, his lawyer said Thursday.

Grafton Thomas failed to control his inner demons and for that was labeled a domestic terrorist and an anti-Semite rather than a man with a "profound mental disturbance," lawyer Michael Sussman said during a 50-minute conference call with reporters.

“How many more like him are there, and what are we going to do about it?" Sussman said. "We have to look ourselves in the mirror."

Thomas was the victim of child sexual abuse and was placed on Social Security disability for a number of years because of his mental state, Sussman said.

Thomas, 37, who's being held on $5 million bail in the Westchester County jail in Valhalla, allegedly stopped taking Latuda, an antipsychotic medication, in October in 2019, Sussman said.

Thomas was arrested and charged with menacing a police officer after he refused to put down the knife he was holding during that 2018 episode. He also was taken to Orange County Medical Center for a psychiatric evaluation, diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and returned to police custody.

That charge was eventually dismissed after Thomas stayed out of legal trouble.

Sussman said his team's search of a cabin in Wurtsboro, New York, where Thomas had been living until just over a year ago, turned up unopened bottles of his medication and rambling diaries — but none of the anti-Semitic and pro-Nazi material the FBI claims to have discovered in the suspect's mother's home in Greenwood Lake, New York. That cabin had not been searched by the FBI, he said.

Federal authorities contend Thomas betrayed anti-Semitic motives in his journal writings and internet searches, including queries for “Why did Hitler hate the Jews?”

Michael Archer, a forensic scientist retained for his defense, said during Thursday’s call that the writings he so far had seen so far were the “ramblings of a madman” and showed no signs of anti-Semitism.

Thomas' mother, Kim, said her son was born and grew up in a Jewish neighborhood in Brooklyn. She denied allegations that Grafton harbored anti-Semitic feelings and said she knows of no link between her son and the Black Hebrew Israelites, the group tied to last month's fatal shooting at a kosher grocery store in Jersey City, New Jersey.

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Prosecutors say bleach found in his car was evidence Thomas was trying to clean the blood off after the attack. However, Thomas routinely used bleach to wash himself and his clothing, Sussman said, seeking to explain the traces of the chemical that arresting officers allegedly found on Thomas hours after Saturday night's attack.

Thomas is being held in the Westchester County jail and faces state charges of attempted murder and federal charges of obstructing the free exercise of religion in an attempt to kill. He initially had been in the Rockland County Jail, but federal authorities moved him to Valhalla after adding their hate-crime offenses against him.

The Rockland County District Attorney’s Office is set to present the state charges to a grand jury on Friday. Sussman said Rockland prosecutors hadn’t formally responded to his request that Thomas undergo a 30-day psychiatric evaluation in a hospital.