SHARON, MASS. (WHDH) - A 28-year-old man is facing a civil rights charge in connection with the destruction of a Jewish landmark in Sharon, police said.
Yerachmiel E. Taube, of Sharon, pleaded not guilty Monday in Stoughton District Court to charges including malicious destruction of property, destruction to a religious organization, interference with Civil Rights, and disorderly conduct.
Taube was arrested Saturday by officers investigating the repeated vandalism of The Sharon Eruv — a series of poles and string that mark the boundary of the Jewish community for the purpose of carrying items on the Sabbath, according to a post on the Sharon Police Department’s Facebook page.
Investigators installed a plot camera along the trail Friday that took pictures ever three seconds of the area where the vandalism was occurring, according to court documents. After spotting the suspect in the images, police immediately identified him as Taube, who worked at a nearby Cumberland Farms.
After obtaining a search warrant for his home on Berkshire Avenue, police say they recovered the clothes that the suspect was wearing in the surveillance images and several groups of white string on Taube’s bed, desk, and floor.
The Sharon Eruv, built in 1990, has recently been the subject of “extensive vandalism,” according to police.
Rabbi Noah Cheses says he knows Taube through his mother, who attends temple and relies on the Eruv line.
“We hope that he will be able to embrace the rehabilitation that he needs and that he’ll be able to heal from the anger that he has,” Cheses told 7News.
Taube is due back in court in July. His bail was set at $2,500 cash.
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