San Francisco, CA – A New Jersey man charged with dragging Holocaust scholar Elie Wiesel from a hotel elevator apologized in court today to the Nobel laureate over the attack.
Join our WhatsApp groupSubscribe to our Daily Roundup Email
Eric Hunt, 22, has pleaded not guilty to charges of attempted kidnapping, false imprisonment, battery, stalking, elder abuse and hate crimes following the February incident at San Francisco's Argent Hotel.
The apology came in the midst of a hearing to determine whether Hunt, who originally pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity but later changed his plea, should stand trial.
Hunt raised a shaking hand and spoke up suddenly from his seat next to his lawyer just as Wiesel had finished describing his ordeal in Nazi death camps, where his parents and sister died.
"Mr. Wiesel, I'm sorry for scaring you and I'm sorry you experienced the Holocaust," Hunt said. "My grandfather fought the Nazis and I'm sorry about what happened."
Wiesel did not respond but went on to describe the Feb. 1 incident in which he said Hunt grabbed him from the elevator and demanded that the 78-year-old professor come to his room for an interview. Wiesel said he feared he was being kidnapped and began shouting for help in the empty hallway on the hotel's sixth floor.
"The shock to me was so great I lost a sense of time and of space," said Wiesel, who was not injured.
The defense has sent results of a psychiatrist's evaluation to Wiesel along with 20 letters from Hunt's family, friends and teachers describing the incident as deeply out of character for the high school honor student and college graduate, Runfola said.
"I'm hoping that in (Wiesel's) lifelong struggle to help oppressed people, he reaches out to one of them, and that's Eric Hunt," Runfola said. [FoxNews]
