The anti-Semitic Elmo who stopped traffic and offended passersby in Times Square last November was sentenced on Wednesday to one year on Rikers Island for attempting to extort $2 million from the Girl Scouts.
According to the New York Daily News, Dan Sandler, who acknowledged he had broken the law, pleaded guilty to reduced charges of second-degree attempted grand larceny and third-degree stalking.
The anti-Semitic Elmo however said he accepted his punishment of a year in jail because he had a good reason for breaking the law, adding his actions were just a "protest" against the organization's ties to the pharmaceutical industry.
"This was not a case of someone in the back room or front office trying to embezzle," Sandler told Manhattan Supreme Court Judge Robert Stoltz, the New York Daily News reported. "This was more of a protest, like lying in an intersection.
"I'm not in any way sorry to the Girl Scouts organization because I believe they are a very corrupt organization because of their relationship to the pharmaceutical industry," he said.
Sandler said the Girl Scouts are marketing pharmaceutical products to children for the uses other than their original purposes. Sandler began sending and leaving harassing emails and voice mails in 2012 for a Girl Scouts supervisor, the Daily News reported.
When told to stop contacting the organization, Sandler threatened to spread false rumors about sexual abuse in the organization unless it gave him a high-paying position or made him a millionaire.
"I want a telecommute job from home of life at 150K," prosecutors said he reportedly wrote in one of several rambling emails. "Or a two million dollar cash settlement. As you know, the newspapers like to cover my evil Elmo scenario."
Sandler pleaded guilty to attempted grand larceny after the judge agreed to give him a year in prison. Part of his sentencing deal is that Sandler has to stay away from the Girl Scout officials. Sandler had also pleaded guilty to attempted grand larceny and stalking charges and was sentenced to one year on each count, according to the Daily News.
In September 2012, Sandler was arrested in Times Square where he spewing anti-Semitic rants while dressed as the "Sesame Street" character, telling passersbys, "The Jews are responsible for everything that's wrong with the world! I hate the Jews!"
