A 36-year-old Dundalk man has pleaded guilty to damaging religious property after spray-painting swastikas and other hate symbols across a dozen headstones at a Baltimore County Jewish cemetery, in an attack investigators say he carried out because of the cemetery's Jewish identity. George Horn admitted to the July 2023 vandalism at Ohr Knesseth Israel Anshe Sfard Cemetery, a burial ground established in Dundalk in the late 19th century.
Caretakers discovered 12 gravestones spray-painted with swastikas and other hate symbols, according to Nottingham MD. The damage proved more lasting than a simple paint job: residual paint in the outline of swastikas remained on several headstones even after cleanup efforts, the outlet reports, forcing the cemetery to replace them entirely.
Horn pled guilty to damaging religious property after he painted swastikas and other symbols on multiple headstones at the cemetery, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Maryland. As first reported by WBFF, prosecutors say Horn sprayed black paint over several gravestones, mostly forming swastikas, and that evidence showed he harbored antisemitic animus toward Jewish people.
Phone and Storage Unit Yielded Hitler's Manifesto
Investigators recovered a nine-second video on Horn's phone showing him spray-painting two gravestones, according to the Nottingham MD report. The same device held a digital copy of Adolf Hitler's manifesto, Mein Kampf, and a search of Horn's car and storage unit turned up a journal containing references to Nazism and white supremacy along with additional items containing antisemitic messages.
Officials say the evidence, taken together, pointed to a deliberate, targeted act rather than random mischief. According to the same reporting, Horn admitted targeting the cemetery specifically because it is Jewish.
Sentencing Set for January, Carries Up to Three Years
U.S. District Judge Matthew J. Maddox has scheduled Horn's sentencing for Jan. 14, 2027, per the Nottingham MD account. The federal charge of damaging religious property carries a maximum penalty of three years in prison, the outlet notes.
Horn's case arrives amid a broader, if uneven, national picture on antisemitic incidents. The Anti-Defamation League tracked 6,274 antisemitic incidents across the United States in 2025, which the organization says was 33 percent lower than the 9,354 incidents tabulated in 2024 but still five times higher than a decade ago, according to the Anti-Defamation League. The group classified 2025 as the third-highest year on record for such incidents since it began tracking them in 1979.
Maryland's Numbers Tell a Mixed Story
Maryland ranked ninth in the nation in total antisemitic incidents in 2025 at 181, a 49 percent decrease from 2024, according to the Baltimore Jewish Times. That same report found antisemitic assaults nationally rose from 196 in 2024 to 203 in 2025 even as overall incident counts fell.
State-level hate-crime data shows a similar downward but still elevated trend. Maryland law enforcement agencies reported 884 hate bias incidents last year, a 4.3 percent decrease from 2024, according to Maryland Matters. Religious bias incidents declined overall, the outlet reports, but anti-Jewish incidents remained the second most reported category in the state.
Cemetery vandalism targeting Jewish communities has surfaced elsewhere in the Baltimore area in recent years. Thirteen gravesites were found vandalized at the German Hill Road Jewish Cemetery in the Dundalk area near the city-county line, according to WBAL-TV, in an incident that also involved swastikas and antisemitic messages painted on headstones.
