Anna Mochalova, 32, of Brooklyn, was arrested Saturday and arraigned Sunday on hate crime charges connected to two attacks on October 21 in Midtown Manhattan.

Prosecutors say she first followed a 26-year-old man in traditional Hasidic clothing near West 47th Street and Fifth Avenue at about 5:50 p.m., cornered him against a car, and stabbed him in the lower back with an unidentified sharp object, believed to be a syringe.

He was hospitalized at Bellevue in stable condition. About five minutes later, she allegedly attacked a second man wearing a yarmulke near Sixth Avenue and West 45th Street, stabbing him in the forearm.

According to the criminal complaint, the second victim, who speaks Russian, heard Mochalova threaten him in Russian with words substantially resembling, 'Run away from here. I have a gun, I am going to shoot you,' before she reached inside her jacket as if referencing a firearm.

He suffered a forearm laceration and declined medical attention. The complaint states she then approached a third man and asked whether he was Jewish; when he said he was Muslim, she apologized and walked away.

An assistant district attorney told the court that Mochalova 'selected both of her targets because she believed them to be Jewish.'

The case broke through because of what surveillance footage showed: a woman in a brown faux-fur jacket ignoring other pedestrians and pursuing a visibly Jewish victim as he tried to put a parked car between them.

Manhattan Shomrim Safety Patrol credited its volunteers, the NYPD Hate Crimes Task Force, Shomrim groups in Crown Heights and Queens, and public tips with helping secure the arrest, after a detective built a still image from the video and another officer recognized Mochalova from previous interactions.

The attacks rattled the Diamond District, a neighborhood dense with Jewish-owned businesses. CBS News New York reports one business owner said 'It could have happened to myself,' while another resident said the block's many Jewish residents are 'all on edge.'

His family, he said, inspired him through grandparents who survived the Holocaust.

The attacks come as confirmed hate crimes in New York City rose nearly 13% year to date, with 463 incidents in 2026 compared with 410 last year, according to NYPD statistics.

Antisemitic crimes account for 52.9% of those incidents, 245 of the 463, up slightly from 242 in the same period of 2025, even as overall major crime fell 6.6%. Jewish New Yorkers make up roughly 10% of the city's population.

Notably, third-quarter NYPD data shows anti-Jewish incidents declined, 59 this year versus 68 last year.

Mochalova faces two counts of second-degree assault as a hate crime, one count of menacing as a hate crime, two counts of criminal weapon possession, and two counts of aggravated harassment.

Prosecutors requested $100,000 cash bail, but the judge set $50,000 cash or $150,000 bond, which CBS reports was partially secured. Her attorney, Legal Aid's Lila Carpenter, argued in court that 'there may be an ID issue,' saying 'These allegations are concerning.

Whether they're my client's is a different story.' She is due back in court on October 29, with the NYPD Hate Crime Task Force investigating both incidents.