Federal prosecutors in Detroit charged four more people in an alleged campaign of intimidation against Jewish organizations, University of Michigan leaders and businesses perceived to have ties to Israel, bringing the total number of defendants in the case to 12. 

The latest defendants — Henry David MacKeen-Shapiro, 23; Aaron Hunter Vonbargen, 25; Joseph Mark Fisher, 23; and Srishti Tarana Sharma, 23 — are accused of participating in the campaign targeting the Jewish Federation of Detroit, university leadership, campus law enforcement personnel and several businesses. Two were arrested this week, while the other two remain at large. 

“From Pharaoh to Hitler to Hamas, those who terrorize Jews have been the bad guys. As Americans, our job is to fight the bad guys,” U.S. Attorney Jerome Gorgon, the top federal prosecutor in Detroit, said.

The arrests follow the June indictment of eight other anti-Israel activists affiliated with the University of Michigan. 

Following the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks in Israel, the defendants carried out a series of coordinated actions targeting university leaders or organizations with connections to Israel, according to the indictment. On the one-year anniversary of the attacks, they vandalized Detroit’s Jewish Federation building and two other businesses, spray-painting words including “intifada.” 

They also forcibly entered and occupied university buildings, defaced property and disrupted campus events — and placed fake bloody corpses outside the homes of multiple university leaders, including then-University of Michigan President Santa Ono, over their perceived support for Israel. 

According to Jennifer Runyan, special agent in charge of the FBI Detroit Field Office, the defendants — while masked and hooded — “allegedly threw noxious chemicals through the windows of families’ homes and taped demand letters to their front doors” and also “discussed methods by which to harm the targets and their families, including poison, bombs, and psychological torture.”