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NYC man accused of stabbing court officers had prior run-ins with police
By
Samantha Max
Published Jul 4, 2025
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JB Nicholas / Gothamist
By
Samantha Max
Published Jul 4, 2025
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A man accused of stabbing two court officers at a Manhattan courthouse last month had prior run-ins with law enforcement and accused police of violating his rights in the past.
The Manhattan district attorney’s office said Jonathan Wohl, 37, has repeatedly caused disruptions at the criminal courthouse and was forcibly removed from the building in January after yelling about law enforcement. On the day of the stabbing, prosecutors said, he left behind pieces of paper at the courthouse with writings that criticized police and the legal system.
Nearly three years earlier, he accidentally recorded hours of candid conversations between NYPD officers who discussed how they gamed the department’s overtime system and insulted people being held after an arrest.
Wohl, a construction worker, faces two counts of first-degree attempted murder and other charges in connection with the June 16 attack that injured multiple officers. The Manhattan district attorney’s office said Wohl knifed two officers and tussled with several other officers at a security checkpoint in the lobby of a criminal court building in Lower Manhattan.
He pleaded not guilty to all the charges against him on Thursday, and a judge ordered that he be held in jail without bail while he awaits trial.
Wohl made headlines in 2023, under different circumstances. He had been arrested several months earlier for trespassing after visiting his union hall and urging his representatives to investigate alleged racial discrimination at a work site, according to court papers.
Wohl’s phone was recording at the time of his arrest, and it kept recording while NYPD officers held him in detention for about eight hours. The recording captured officers talking about exploiting the NYPD’s overtime system and spending longer than necessary on paperwork to make more money. It also taped officers insulting people in detention.
Wohl shared the recording with Gothamist, which first reported the story in April 2023. The NYPD did not immediately respond to an inquiry about whether any of the officers who were recorded faced discipline.
At Wohl’s arraignment on the attempted murder charges Thursday, Assistant District Attorney Taylor Holland said Wohl charged at officers with a folding knife near the metal detectors at the courthouse entrance. He said one officer was stabbed in the neck and needed stitches, while another officer’s face was cut so deeply it chipped his jaw and may have caused nerve damage.
A sergeant suffered broken ribs, the prosecutor said. All survived their injuries and are recovering.
“This was a vicious attack, and the lack of more significant injuries is a miracle,” Holland said in court.
He said Wohl faced a couple of drug-related cases in the early 2010s but didn’t have any pending cases in the courthouse on the day of the attack, leading prosecutors to believe the violence was planned.
Holland also said at the arraignment that Wohl has come to court and made disruptions several times in the last two years. In one instance this past January, he screamed about law enforcement, prompting officials to forcibly remove him from the DA’s office, the prosecutor said.
Holland said law enforcement also found a notebook and pieces of paper that Wohl brought to court the day of the stabbing with statements about the court system, police and the phrase “Protect Rodney Hinton,” likely referring to a man accused of running over an Ohio sheriff’s deputy after police shot and killed his son.
Holland said prosecutors are investigating a possible motive and reviewing Wohl’s writings, which he said describe “animosity” toward the court system and police. Wohl’s defense attorney, Patrick Joyce, declined to comment. In court, Joyce told the judge he was considering filing a motion related to his client’s mental health later this summer.
Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg attended Wohl’s arraignment Thursday and said after that the courthouse attack seemed “targeted” against court officers.
“That type of conduct is not going to be tolerated in Manhattan,” he said.
Wohl, who is Black, filed a civil lawsuit against the city and the police department following his September 2022 detention at an NYPD station house, accusing various officers of racial profiling, false arrest and other abuses. He also accused police of using excessive force against him during another arrest at his union hall weeks later. That lawsuit is still pending.
According to court papers, Wohl was arrested in 2022 while visiting his union hall to confront union officials about why they hadn’t followed up on the status of a discrimination complaint he had lodged against a work site. He recorded the conversation on his cellphone.
Someone called the police, and officers arrested him, the lawsuit states. They also seized his work helmet, a water bottle and a calendar, all of which were adorned with the phrase “Black Lives Matter.”
Unbeknownst to Wohl or the officers, his cellphone continued to record for about eight hours while he was held at the Midtown South precinct. In the recording, which Wohl later shared with Gothamist, officers could be heard discussing the Black Lives Matter sticker on his helmet, voicing their displeasure with the sticker and Wohl.
The city has denied wrongdoing in legal papers and has asked a judge to dismiss Wohl’s claim.
Wohl has two other lawsuits pending in New York state courts, both of which accuse past employers of racial discrimination. In one lawsuit, filed in early 2022, he said his coworkers at a construction site regularly used the N-word, criticized the Black Lives Matter movement and made other offensive statements about Black people. In a 2024 lawsuit against another construction company, Wohl said he encountered racist graffiti in the bathroom of his work site and that a co-worker of his regularly used racial slurs.
This story has been updated to include a comment from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
Tagged
Race And Justice Unit
new york city
public safety
Samantha Max
Samantha reports on whether New Yorkers feel safe and whether the institutions that are supposed to protect them are working. Before coming to WNYC/Gothamist, she spent three years covering the criminal justice system in Tennessee for Nashville Public Radio. Her reporting on Nashville's police department received multiple awards, including the Daniel Schorr Journalism Prize. Samantha was also part of the inaugural class of Report for America, a service journalism program that sends up-and-coming reporters to local newsrooms across the country. She is a Northwestern University grad, a Baltimore native and fluent in Spanish. Got a tip? Email [email protected] or Signal: samanthamaxwnyc.93.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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