Dion Marsh Hate Crimes Case: 40-Year Sentence and Appeals

Dion Marsh is a New Jersey man serving 40 years in federal prison for a series of antisemitic attacks against Orthodox Jewish men in Lakewood and Jackson Township on April 8, 2022. Over roughly seven hours, Marsh carjacked one victim, struck four others with vehicles, and stabbed one of them. All five survived. The Dion Marsh hate crimes case closed out its appellate track on January 12, 2026, when the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear his petition and left his sentence in place.¹

What Happened on April 8, 2022

Marsh was 27 and living in Manchester, New Jersey. He began in the early afternoon in Lakewood, home to one of the largest Orthodox Jewish communities in the country. Around 1:18 p.m., he approached an Orthodox Jewish man stopped in traffic, beat him, and stole his Toyota. That victim needed stitches and had a black eye.² Earlier in the sequence, Marsh had tried to carjack another vehicle occupied by a father and two children; the driver locked the doors and drove off, throwing Marsh from the car.³

Marsh drove the stolen Toyota home, parked it, and put on traditional Orthodox Jewish clothing he found inside as a disguise. About four hours later he left again in his grandmother’s Honda and returned to Lakewood. At roughly 5:20 p.m., he deliberately ran over an Orthodox Jewish man. At about 6:06 p.m., he struck a second man, turned the car around, and tried to hit him again. That victim sustained several broken bones.⁴

He went home again, switched back to the stolen Toyota, and returned. At about 6:55 p.m., he ran over a third Orthodox Jewish man, then got out, kicked him in the ribs, and stabbed him in the chest.⁵ About an hour and a half later, at roughly 8:23 p.m. and during the Jewish Sabbath, he veered off the road in neighboring Jackson Township and struck a fourth Orthodox Jewish pedestrian, who suffered broken bones and internal injuries.⁴

All five victims were visibly identifiable as Orthodox Jews by their clothing. Three were hospitalized at Jersey Shore University Medical Center, and one was later transferred to a rehabilitation facility.⁶ The most severely injured victim, identified in court proceedings as Mr. Goldberg, underwent more than 13 surgeries. The sentencing judge later observed that Goldberg would never walk the same way and would feel pain every morning for the rest of his life.³

How Investigators Established the Antisemitic Motive

Officers arrested Marsh at his Manchester home around midnight on April 9, 2022. When they arrived, he was clutching a machete to his chest.⁷

In a videotaped statement after his arrest, Marsh told investigators the attacks “had to be done” because “the Hasidic Jews” “are the real devils” and “had this coming.”⁸ A relative reported that beforehand Marsh had said, “It’s going to be a bloodbath.” At his later plea hearing, Marsh admitted he chose his victims because he believed they were Orthodox Jews, identifying them by the neighborhoods they were in and the clothing they wore.⁷ The Anti-Defamation League noted that he had not shown prior indications of antisemitism before the spree.⁹

The State and Federal Charges

Marsh was prosecuted twice, in state court and in federal court. In Ocean County, he initially faced multiple counts of attempted murder, carjacking, attempted carjacking, attempted kidnapping, weapons offenses, and bias intimidation. Six days after his arrest, prosecutors added a terrorism charge.¹⁰

On January 24, 2024, Marsh pleaded guilty in state court to a single count of terrorism before Judge Guy P. Ryan.¹⁰ He was sentenced to 30 years in state prison on the terrorism count, along with a concurrent 40-year term on related attempted murder, kidnapping, and weapons charges.¹¹

On February 1, 2024, Marsh pleaded guilty in federal court before U.S. District Judge Zahid N. Quraishi to five counts of violating the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act and one count of carjacking. Four of the hate crime counts involved attempted murder with dangerous weapons and each carried a maximum penalty of life in prison. The fifth hate crime count, tied to the initial assault during the carjacking, carried a 10-year maximum, and the carjacking count carried a 15-year maximum.² Marsh admitted at the plea hearing that he targeted all five men because they were Orthodox Jews.¹²

The 40-Year Federal Sentence

On July 23, 2024, Judge Quraishi sentenced Marsh to 480 months in federal prison, followed by five years of supervised release. That 40-year term exceeded the federal advisory guidelines range of 324 to 405 months. The judge applied an upward variance, citing the premeditated nature of the crimes and Marsh’s lack of remorse. The court also imposed a $600 special assessment and a no-contact order covering all five victims. The federal sentence runs concurrently with the state term.³

Victims and family members spoke at sentencing. One described being “attacked because I was born a Jew.” Another recalled thinking, “What have I done to deserve this?” when he was stabbed. Given a chance to speak, Marsh said the events of April 2022 were “clearly horrible” and that he was “more than gravely, like, really sorry about the whole situation.” Judge Quraishi called those remarks “disingenuous.” Defense counsel Adam Axel, an assistant federal public defender, expressed “deep sympathy to the victims” and called the crimes “deplorable” and “inexcusable.”³

The Rejected Mental Health Argument

Marsh’s defense argued at sentencing that he had been in a mental health crisis when the attacks happened. Counsel described a history of addiction to cocaine, crack cocaine, and heroin, and said Marsh had stopped using drugs in the months before April 2022, after which his behavior became increasingly erratic. Family members had called police in the weeks beforehand asking for help and describing a “mental health breakdown.”³

The defense submitted a clinical opinion from a licensed master social worker describing a “psychotic episode triggered at least in part by the cessation of drug use and myriad life stressors,” together with police reports and text messages documenting Marsh’s “increasingly erratic, paranoid, and delusional behavior.” Jail disciplinary records showing fights with inmates and an assault on a prison nurse were offered as further evidence of an unaddressed crisis.¹³

Judge Quraishi rejected the theory. The court noted there was “no diagnosis of a mental health issue” and called the evidence “speculative, at best.” The jail records, in the court’s view, showed dangerousness rather than mitigation, and supported a harsher sentence. The mental health claims were “significantly outweighed” by the severity of the crimes and Marsh’s lack of remorse.³

Appeals Through the Supreme Court

Marsh, represented on appeal by public defenders K. Anthony Thomas and Timothy M. Shepherd, took his sentence to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. He raised four arguments: that the district court wrongly found the attacks premeditated; that the court violated his Fifth Amendment rights by drawing negative inferences from his silence about remorse; that the court improperly dismissed his mental health evidence; and that a 40-year sentence was substantively unreasonable.³

On August 13, 2025, a Third Circuit panel of Judges Restrepo, Bibas, and Chung affirmed the sentence on all four grounds. The panel acknowledged that the Third Circuit had not squarely addressed whether the Fifth Amendment bars a sentencing court from inferring lack of remorse from a defendant’s silence, but rejected the claim. Rehearing was denied on September 12, 2025.¹³

On November 10, 2025, Marsh petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court for certiorari on a single question: “Whether the Fifth Amendment prohibits a sentencing court from inferring remorselessness from a criminal defendant’s silence.”¹³ The petition pointed to a gap left by the 1999 decision in Mitchell v. United States, which held that a sentencing court cannot draw adverse inferences from a defendant’s silence about the facts of a crime but expressly declined to address remorse.¹⁴ His lawyers argued that federal circuits were split, with some barring such inferences and others allowing them.

The Supreme Court denied the petition on January 12, 2026, leaving the 40-year federal sentence in place.¹

1
Supreme Court of the United States. Docket, Marsh v. United States, No. 25-6109
2
U.S. Department of Justice. Ocean County Man Admits Federal Hate Crimes in Series of Violent Assaults on Members of Orthodox Jewish Community
3
Supreme Court of the United States. Petition Appendix, Marsh v. United States, No. 25-6109
4
Times of Israel. New Jersey Man Sentenced to 40 Years in Prison for Antisemitic Crime Spree
5
ABC7 New York. Dion Marsh Arrested, Federal Hate Crimes, Lakewood New Jersey Orthodox Jewish
6
ABC News. New Jersey Man Pleads Guilty to Hate Crimes
7
Asbury Park Press. Manchester Man Dion Marsh Admits Targeting Jewish, Antisemitism
8
CNN. New Jersey Hate Crime Orthodox Jews
9
The Forward. Antisemitic Attacks Lakewood Prison
10
Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office. Manchester Man Pleads Guilty to Terrorism
11
News 12 New Jersey. Man Who Pleaded Guilty to Attacking Jewish Men Sentenced to 30 Years on Terror Charges
12
U.S. Department of Justice. New Jersey Man Pleads Guilty to Series of Violent Assaults on Members of the Orthodox Jewish Community
13
Supreme Court of the United States. Petition for Writ of Certiorari, Marsh v. United States
14
Justia. Mitchell v. United States, 526 U.S. 314