The Department of Justice is ready to look for charges of hate crimes and the death penalty against the alleged gunman who fatally fired two employees of the Israeli embassy in Washington, DC, two sources familiar with the matter confirmed ABC News on Wednesday.
Prosecutors are about to request that a large jury accuse Elias Rodríguez, as soon as this week, sources said.
It has remained in custody since the fatal shooting of Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim outside the Jewish Museum of the Capitol on May 21.
CNN First reported News of the expected positions.
Rodríguez was accused of a first degree criminal complaint, killing foreign officials and using a firearm to commit murder and a crime of violence, a day after the shooting. The interim lawyer of DCU Jeanine Pirro emphasized at the time the charges were only of an initial nature.
Capitol of the suspicious Jewish museum Elias Rodríguez.
“A young couple at the beginning of the trip of their lives, about to participate in another country, made their bodies removed in the cold of the night in a foreign city in a body bag. We are no longer going to tolerate that,” Pirro said during information about the press on May 22. “Anti -Semitism will not be tolerated, especially in the capital of the nation.”
At the beginning of last month, prosecutors in the case of Rodriguez sought an extension for the time to return an accusation against him, pointing out the complex and unusual nature of the charges he faced.
Rodríguez was seen in videos shouting “Palestine free, free!” Within the museum, a few minutes after he allegedly shot Lischinsky and Milgrim dozens of times, and then supposedly told the police about his arrest: “I did it by Palestine.”
But to ensure an accusation for the new position that Rodriguez’s acts were equivalent to a crime of hate, prosecutors would need to have evidence that their alleged actions were motivated by anti -Semitism and not only hatred towards Israel and the war in Gaza.
A spectator prays while using an Israel flag with a cross in the middle, near the Jewish Capital Museum near the Capitol, May 21, 2025, in Washington, DC
Tom Brenner for Washington Post through Getty Images
Rodríguez has not yet presented a plea in his case. A public defender who represents it did not immediately respond to the request for ABC News comments.
The complaint alleges that Rodriguez shot the couple on the back and then shot Milgrim again as he tried to drag.
Lischinsky, 30, was a researcher in the political department of the Israeli embassy, while Milgrim, 26, organized American missions to Israel.
