A Rogers Park woman has been charged with a hate crime after allegedly drawing swastikas and other antisemitic graffiti at an Orthodox Jewish school, a Chicago Park District facility and other buildings during a vandalism spree across the North Side last week, authorities said.
Mariana Lynch, 30, was arrested Thursday afternoon in the 7300 block of North Sheridan Road and charged with one felony count of hate crime to a school, two counts of damage to government property and four counts of criminal defacement to property, Chicago police announced Saturday.
Officers spotted Lynch after multiple people called police to report her using a permanent marker to tag swastikas on businesses along Sheridan, as well as on an apartment building nearby and at Leone Beach Park, 1222 W. Touhy Ave., court documents show.
Within an hour, at least five places in the area had been tagged with swastikas and other messages like “never again means never again,” according to a police report.
Officers recognized Lynch from a description in a police bulletin issued a day earlier after similar graffiti was found splashed across a sign at Yeshiva Ohr Boruch, an Orthodox Jewish primary school in the West Ridge neighborhood, court documents show.
Lynch allegedly drew swastikas, a Star of David and “die KKK raka,” among other things, causing more than $500 in damage at the school, the police report said.
Before she was arrested, Lynch allegedly told police she was being “personally persecuted” by Jewish people and “has to get attention” before she admitted to the vandalism, according to the police report.
Court documents suggest Lynch has dealt with mental illness in the past.
In a Saturday hearing, Judge William Fahy released Lynch ahead of trial on the condition that she stay away from the areas where the vandalism was found, according to court documents.
Lynch is due back in court in Skokie on Thursday.
