A New Jersey man was arrested Saturday in connection with an attack on Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel in a San Francisco hotel almost three weeks ago.
New Jersey police arrested Eric Hunt, 22, of Sussex County, N.J., at the Carrier Clinic in Somerset County, N.J, after tracking him down through credit card activity, according to a Feb. 17 Somerset County Prosecutor’s Office press release.
Hunt, described as a Holocaust denier, is wanted in San Francisco for charges of assault, false imprisonment, elder abuse and stalking, according to the press release. He was sent to Somerset County Jail while he waits to be extradited back to California, where his bail is set at $500,000.
Hunt had been staying at the Carrier Clinic, a mental health clinic in Belle Mead, N.J. within the past week for undisclosed reasons, according to a Feb. 18 San Francisco Chronicle article.
Wiesel, a 78-year-old Nobel Laureate and Boston University professor, was dragged out of an elevator Feb. 1 in the Argent Hotel. Five days later, a man who claimed to be Hunt posted an account of the attack on anti-Semitic websites, according to the Chronicle. The account states the man claiming to be Hunt cornered Wiesel, attempting to force the author to admit the Holocaust never occurred.
He had stalked Wiesel at a conference in Florida in recent weeks, police told the Chronicle.
Hunt had called his grandparents one week after the attack and asked to be picked up at a Pennsylvania bus station, according to his father, Frank Hunt, 49, of Archbald, Pa. Frank Hunt, who said he had not spoken with Eric Hunt since 1992, said he decided to meet his son because the grandparents, Frank Hunt’s parents, were too ill to pick him up. Frank Hunt said he was unaware of the attack on Wiesel at the time.
“[Eric Hunt] just didn’t appear to be healthy,” Frank Hunt told The Daily Free Press. “He didn’t have a bag with him. He didn’t have luggage or a toothbrush or anything, and I was kind of wondering why he didn’t have anything. A light kind of went off in my head . . . but I thought it was anxiety and nerves.”
Frank Hunt said he wanted his son to adjust to being together for the first time in many years, so he brought him to his grandparents’ home nearby, but he said Eric Hunt wanted to discuss the long separation he had with his father.
“He wasn’t himself, and he asked that I come and see him, and he said he needed to talk to me about matters he had since he was a boy,” Frank Hunt said. “He had feelings that I didn’t want to see him and it was a bad marriage. It was very, very tough for all of us.”
Frank Hunt, who has worked as a correctional facility official for 22 years among “the most dangerous type of individuals,” said his son is intelligent and had never received detention in school. He added that Eric Hunt’s mother and twin brother were shocked to learn of the arrest.
“Eric was the head of the school paper, and people are shocked that this has even occurred, and we don’t understand it ourselves,” he said.
“I think it has really been blown out of proportion,” Frank Hunt continued. “I think [Elie Wiesel] has to understand that I think that my son has had treatment for depression in the past.”
Frank Hunt said his son’s depression has gotten worse and may be a result of a bipolar disorder.
“I would wish and hope that somebody out there could look at this 22-year-old man and help him get a life and get him well rather than to put such serious, serious charges on him . . . when it’s not him, it’s a disease,” he said. “He needs to get well, and I hope that people are understanding.”
Somerset County Prosecutor Wayne Forrest deemed Eric Hunt a “Fugitive from Justice” for committing a crime in California and fleeing to New Jersey, according to the press release.
Hunt’s Holocaust denial activities began after he graduated from college, said Lt. Dan Mahoney, Special Investigations Head for the San Francisco Police, in the Chronicle article. Hunt used the Internet to voice his opinions to other Holocaust denial groups, but he is suspected to have acted alone in his attack on Wiesel.
“He appears to be what we call a lone wolf,” Mahoney said in the article.
San Francisco police located Hunt after he left his wallet and driver’s license in his car in the Argent Hotel parking lot, according to the Chronicle. Police monitored Hunt’s credit card activity to find him.
Police issued a warrant for Hunt’s arrest Feb. 16 after tracing his whereabouts to the Carrier Clinic, where he had checked in with his mother’s help, according to the Chronicle.
Phone calls to the Elie Wiesel Center for Judaic Studies and the Elie Wiesel Foundation to Humanity were not immediately returned yesterday.
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