Williamsburg Church Vandal Caused $5K Of Damage, Diocese Says

WILLIAMSBURG, BROOKLYN — A man who screamed into the surveillance camera before defacing a local church garden and religious statue has been found and arrested, cops and church officials said.

Michael Gould Wartofsky, 34, was charged with multiple counts of criminal mischief as a hate crime after he threw a religious statue to the ground at Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Rectory on North Eighth Street over the weekend, court records show.

Church officials said Wartofsky was caught on the church's surveillance camera pulling plants from the church's garden and throwing them at the rectory's door while screaming into the camera, the Diocese of Brooklyn said. Wartofsky had been walking by the church with two other men, who didn't join in, they said.

Wartofsky then took aim at a statue of St. Jude, knocking it down and dragging it into the middle of the street. He repeatedly kicked the statue before leaving it in the middle of the road, the church leaders said.

It wasn't until several cars drive around the statue that one driver stops, picked it up and put it back on the church's property, they added. The church said the damaged statue is valued at about $5,000.

“This exhibition of violence, anger, and hatred is very disturbing. This is definitely an attack on the Catholic Church,” said Monsignor Jamie Gigantiello, Pastor of the Shrine Church of Our Lady of Mount Carmel-Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary.