{"id":106241,"date":"2024-07-03T00:01:13","date_gmt":"2024-07-03T00:01:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/salman-rushdie-stabbing-suspect-rejects-plea-deal-ahead-of-state-trial\/"},"modified":"2024-07-03T00:01:13","modified_gmt":"2024-07-03T00:01:13","slug":"salman-rushdie-stabbing-suspect-rejects-plea-deal-ahead-of-state-trial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/salman-rushdie-stabbing-suspect-rejects-plea-deal-ahead-of-state-trial\/","title":{"rendered":"Salman Rushdie stabbing suspect rejects plea deal ahead of state trial"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Sean Gallup\/Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

(CHAUTAUQUA, N.Y.) — The New Jersey man accused of stabbing author Salman Rushdie on stage at a speaking event in 2022 rejected a plea deal that involved state and potential federal charges, attorneys said Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Rushdie was stabbed multiple times on stage at the Chautauqua Institution in southwestern New York in August 2022 in what prosecutors said was a “preplanned” attack.<\/p>\n

Hadi Matar was charged with second-degree attempted murder and assault in connection with the attack. He has pleaded not guilty.<\/p>\n

During a court appearance in Chautauqua County on Tuesday, Matar declined the plea deal that covered both state and any potential federal charges, the Chautauqua County District Attorney’s Office said.<\/p>\n

The deal required a guilty plea to the top state count of second-degree attempted murder for a sentence of 20 years — down from a maximum of 25 years for the charge, the district attorney’s office said.<\/p>\n

Under the deal, state and federal prosecutors agreed to the 20-year sentence “with the understanding that Mr. Matar would also plea to a charge in federal court and receive an additional 10-20 years in a federal facility,” the Chautauqua County District Attorney’s Office said in a statement to ABC News.<\/p>\n

The federal sentence would have run consecutive to his state sentence, for 30 to 40 years of total incarceration plus lifetime supervision upon release, the office said.<\/p>\n

The defense had made a counteroffer on Tuesday that proposed a 15-year sentence for the second-degree attempted murder charge, which was rejected by the state, his public defender, Nathaniel Barone II, told ABC News.<\/p>\n

“At that point, it was determined that he was not going to accept the state’s offer,” Barone said.<\/p>\n

Barone said the proposed federal charge was attempting to provide material support to a designated terrorist organization, which had yet to be filed.<\/p>\n

ABC News reached out to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of New York for comment.<\/p>\n

Jury selection in the state case is scheduled for Sept. 10, online court records show.<\/p>\n

Matar remains in custody at the Chautauqua County Jail.<\/p>\n

The indictment alleged that he “attempted to cause the death of Salman Rushdie by stabbing him multiple times with a knife.”<\/p>\n

Rushdie is now blind in his right eye from the attack, which he recounted in a new book, “Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder.”<\/p>\n

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The state trial was postponed from January so that manuscripts related to the memoir could be subpoenaed by the defense.<\/p>\n

A hearing regarding a motion to quash defense discovery subpoenas regarding the book is scheduled for July 18, Barone said.<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sean Gallup\/Getty Images (CHAUTAUQUA, N.Y.) — The New Jersey man accused of stabbing author Salman Rushdie on stage at a speaking event in 2022 rejected a plea deal that involved state and potential federal charges, attorneys said Tuesday. Rushdie was stabbed multiple times on stage at the Chautauqua Institution inRead More →<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[156,31,2],"tags":[273,271,276,274,270,123,275,133,124,272,102,103],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106241"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106241"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106241\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}