Suspect Arrested in Connection With Vandalism of Brooklyn Museum Director’s Home

A suspect has been arrested in connection to the June 11 vandalism of Brooklyn Museum director Anne Pasternak home, police announced Wednesday. The news was first reported by New York Daily News.

Taylor Pelton, 28, has reportedly been charged with criminal mischief as a hate crime. Pasternak’s Brooklyn Heights residence was splashed with red paint in an apparent protest of the museum’s ties to Zionist organizations. The residences of several Brooklyn Museum board trustees were also targeted. Five suspects are still sought by police in connection to the crime. 

At Pasternak’s home, vandals unfurled a banner that read: “Anne Pasternak / Brooklyn Museum / White Supremacist Zionist.” Beneath that statement, in a smaller, red font, were the words “Funds Genocide.”

The incident was decried on X by New York City Mayor Eric Adams, who vowed to “bring the criminals responsible here to justice.

The Association of Art Museum Directors, an industry group for institutional leaders that counts some 240 members, including Pasternak, wrote in a statement that it “unequivocally and forcefully” condemned what it described as an “antisemitic act.”

The Brooklyn Museum has repeatedly faced calls from artists, activists, and cultural workers to sever financial ties to Israel and for museum leadership to publicly term Israel’s military actions in Gaza a genocide. On May 31, a massive pro-Palestine march ended at the Brooklyn Museum, where some 30 activists occupied the lobby for a demonstration in which they demanded that the institution disclose its financial ties to Israel and divest from them. Outside the museum, approximately 1,000 protestors echoed their calls, with some climbing onto the ceiling of the museum’s glass pavilion after being denied entry to the lobby. 

The action resulted in dozens of arrests by the NYPD, and museum leadership subsequently received criticism from activists over what they described as an excessive use of force against unarmed protestors. In a statement to Hyperallergic, a spokesperson for the Brooklyn Museum said that “the police brutality that took place [on May 31] is devastating.” As the museum is city property situated on city-owned land, the NYPD does not need permission to enter the premises.

Protests at the Brooklyn Museum in December focused on the institution’s corporate partnership with Bank of New York Mellon, which has investments in Israeli weapons manufacturer Elbit Systems and which has supported the Friends of Israel Defense Force Donor Advised Fund. (The Bank told the Financial Times in April that it invests in Elbit “as a result of requirements by its passive index investment strategies.”)

According to Palestinian health authorities, more than 39,000 people have been killed in Gaza since the October 7 Hamas attack as a result of Israel’s air and ground campaign.