Anti-Semitic attack victim will testify in House hearing on DA Bragg

Joseph Borgen, a Jewish man brutally beaten in a vicious anti-semitic attack near Times Square in 2021, will testify during the House Judiciary Committee’s special “field hearing” on Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s performance next week. 

Borgen, 30, was added to the slate of witnesses on Friday who will provide testimony during the panel’s “Victims of Violent Crime in Manhattan” hearing, which is set to take place Monday at the Jacob Javits Federal Building, near Bragg’s Lower Manhattan office.

The hearing will examine how Bragg’s “pro-crime, anti-victim policies have led to an increase in violent crime and a dangerous community for New York City residents,” according to the Republican-controlled committee.

Borgen was wearing a yarmulke as he walked to a pro-Israel rally in Midtown Manhattan on May 20, 2021, when he was jumped, beaten and pepper-sprayed by a group of men, some of whom allegedly shouted anti-Semitic slurs during the attack. 

The unprovoked assault, which was caught on camera, left Borgen with a concussion, an injured wrist, a black eye and bruising all over his body. 

Borgen told The Post after the attack that the pain from being maced and pepper-sprayed was worse than the injuries he sustained during the pummeling. 

“My face was on fire. That pain was worse than the concussion and all this other stuff that followed,” he said back in May of 2021.   

Bragg came under fire for offering one of the alleged attackers, Waseem Awawdeh, 24, only a six-month plea deal in the case.

Awawdeh allegedly called Borgen “a dirty Jew” during the assault, and later told his jailers that he would do it again if he could.

Two of the other defendants in the case, Mohammed Othman and Mahmoud Musa, were offered sentences of three-and-a-half to 15 years in prison, which according to Bragg are “commensurate” with their roles in the attack.

“It’s disgusting how Mr. Bragg calls himself a crime fighter, the man does nothing,” Borgen’s father, Barry Borgen, told The Post in January. 

“He offered people who tried to kill my son six months in jail, one guy to walk away because maybe he hit him once. It is a hate crime,” he added. 

Earlier this week, the Judiciary Committee announced that New York City bodega clerk Jose Alba will also testify at Monday’s hearing. 

Alba, then 61, was locked up on Rikers Island and charged by Bragg’s office with second-degree murder last year after he fatally stabbed ex-con Austin Simon, 35, who attacked Alba while he worked inside a Harlem shop.

Bragg ultimately dropped the case against Alba amid public outcry. 

Also testifying Monday will be Madeline Brame, chairwoman of the Victims Rights Reform Council and the mother of a man beaten and stabbed to death in Harlem in 2018; Jennifer Harrison, founder of Victims Rights NY; Paul DiGiacomo, president of the New York City’s Detectives’ Endowment Association; and New York City Councilmember Robert F. Holden. 

Bragg’s approach to crime has come under congressional scrutiny since the DA filed criminal charges against former President Donald Trump linked to 2016 hush-money payments.