An Illinois man was sentenced to 53 years in prison on Friday for the racially motivated murder of a 6-year-old Palestinian American boy and attack on his mother, just days after the Israel-Hamas war broke out in 2023.
Wearing a red jail uniform and appearing thin and frail, 73-year-old Joseph Czuba appeared before Will County Judge Amy Bertani-Tomczak to hear what amounted to a probable life sentence for murder and attempted murder.
In February, a jury found landlord Czuba guilty of first-degree murder, attempted murder, aggravated battery, and hate crimes in the Oct. 14, 2023, death of Wadee Alfayoumi, whose family was the murderer’s tenants.
Czuba received a 30-year sentence for killing Wadee, who was stabbed 26 times.
The prosecution’s only witness, great uncle Mahmoud Yousef, told the court on Friday that no sentence would justify Wadee’s death. “The day he was killed, his father had memories, had plans for his son.”
Yousef turned to face Czuba and stated, “He had no right to take them.”
Czuba also stabbed the boy’s mother, Hanan Shaheen, more than a dozen times in the Chicago suburb of Plainfield Township.
Czuba was sentenced to 30 years in prison for Wadee’s murder, 20 years for attacking the boy’s mother, and an additional three years for a hate crime. All of the sentences are set to run sequentially.
Czuba declined to comment on his own behalf on Friday. There did not appear to be any family members present to support him in court.
According to witnesses, the victims were renting rooms in Czuba’s home when he went on an anti-Muslim rant following the surprise attacks on Israel by Hamas-led militant groups on October 7, 2023.
The boy’s mother testified that Czuba told her that “your people” are killing Jewish people and babies in Israel, and that Muslims were not welcome in his house.
Before sentencing, the judge denied the defense’s request to overturn the verdicts.
At trial, defense lawyer George Lenard accused prosecutors of inflaming jurors’ emotions by making arguments during the rebuttal portion of their case.
“(Prosecutors are) not supposed to give arguments in rebuttal, especially that amount to prejudice,” Lenard informed the jury. “We believe that these grounds in and of themselves are grounds for reversal of the verdicts. But if you add up all of these errors, they provide additional evidence for why the court should grant Mr. Czuba a new trial.”
Yousef, the great uncle, stated that the killer and his victims appeared to get along before Czuba’s mental state spiraled out of control.
“That (long sentence) is not going to be enough. So, Mr Joseph,” Yousef said, turning toward the killer, “say something for your own peace of mind. Come up. Say something.
Odai Alfayoumi, the boy’s father, echoed that sentiment, claiming the killer had always seemed to like his son before suddenly snapping.
“This is America, and I came here because it is a free country,” Alfayoumi said to reporters outside the courthouse.
“So, right now, I’m confused. There are some people who refer to my son as an angel. They heard it a lot. Some people refer to him as a “devil Muslim.” They confuse me. The same guy was looking at my son as an angel, and now he calls him a devil. So I don’t know. “This is America?”
