Temple vandalism charges waived

WILKES-BARRE – A teen girl who police said defaced a synagogue and another building with anti-Semitic words and symbols waived her right to a preliminary hearing in Central Court on Friday.

Nora Rynkiewicz, 18, addresses listed as Evans Street, Pringle, and Factoryville, refused to comment after the hearing. Her family attempted to hide her from media photographers as she jumped into the back seat of a vehicle that sped away.

Wilkes-Barre police charged Rynkiewicz and a 17-year-old female for spray-painting swastikas and racist slurs on the Ohav Zedek Synagogue, 242 S. Franklin St., and the vacant Mertz building at 211 Conyngham Ave., on March 29.

“This case had many serious effects within the local community, specifically the Jewish community and we took it very seriously,” Luzerne County Assistant District Attorney Tim Doherty said.

Through her attorney Jair Novajosky, she waived two counts of criminal mischief, and one count each of institutional vandalism, conspiracy to commit institutional vandalism, ethnic intimidation and conspiracy to commit ethnic intimidation to Luzerne County Court of Common Pleas.

The juvenile, who, according to arrest records admitted to the vandalism and implicated Rynkiewicz, faces the same charges, and is scheduled for a hearing in Luzerne County Juvenile Court in June, city police Detective Ronald Foy said.

Police said swastikas and pro-Nazi statements were found on Rynkiewicz’s myspace.com page that has since been removed from the popular Internet site.

“We feel good that they waived the charges,” Doherty said. “Our investigation with the district attorney’s office and Wilkes-Barre police has been building. It’s an extremely serious case as with all other cases.”

Police said Rynkiewicz, a Wyoming Valley West senior, told a classmate while attending a field trip at the Irem Shrine Temple Circus in Kingston on March 28 that she intended to spray-paint a Jewish temple that night.

The juvenile who is involved told police that she and Rynkiewicz purchased cans of orange-copper and silver spray paint at a store. They spray-painted the Mertz building as a test with a swastika and the words “Hitler was right.”

There police said they found a swastika and the Star of David, and the words “Jude” which is racist for Jew, and “abschaum,” which is German for scum.

Foy received a phone call from a male, who police didn’t identify, who implicated Rynkiewicz in the vandalism. The male told Foy that the vandalism at the temple was “the big thing” being talked about by students at Wyoming Valley West, the criminal complaint says.