Cornell student pleads guilty to posting violent threats to Jewish students online

A former Cornell University student accused of posting violently threatening statements against Jewish people on campus shortly after the start of the war in Gaza in the fall pleaded guilty in federal court Wednesday.

Patrick Dai, from the Rochester, New York, suburb of Pittsford, was accused by federal investigators of posting anonymous threats to shoot and stab Jewish people on a Greek life forum in late October. Dai, a junior, was taken into custody Oct. 31 and was suspended from the Ivy League school in upstate New York.

The threats came amid a spike of antisemitic and anti-Muslim rhetoric related to the war and unnerved Jewish students on the Ithaca campus. Gov. Kathy Hochul and Doug Emhoff, the husband of Vice President Kamala Harris, traveled separately to Ithaca in the wake of the threats to support students. Cornell canceled classes for a day.

Read more: NBC New York