JOLIET, Ill. — An Illinois man was sentenced on Friday to 53 years behind bars for the racially motivated killing of a 6-year-old Palestinian American boy and attacking his mom, days after the Israel-Hamas war erupted in 2023.
Wearing a red jail uniform and appearing thin and frail, 73-year-old Joseph Czuba appeared before Will County Judge Amy Bertani-Tomczak and heard what amounted to a likely life sentence for murder and attempted murder.
A jury in February found the landlord Czuba guilty of first-degree murder, attempted murder, aggravated battery and hate crimes for the Oct. 14, 2023, killing of Wadee Alfayoumi, whose family were tenants of the murderer.
Czuba was sentenced to 30 years for killing Wadee, who was stabbed 26 times.
“No matter what the sentence is going to be, it’s not going to justify” Wadee’s death, the prosecution’s only witness, great uncle Mahmoud Yousef, told the court on Friday. “The day he was killed, his father had memories, had plans for his son.”
Yousef then turned to face Czuba and said: “He had no right to take them.”
Czuba also wounded the boy’s mother, Hanan Shaheen, whom he stabbed more than a dozen times in the Chicago suburb of Plainfield Township.
In addition to the 30 years for Wadee's killing, Czuba was hit with a 20-year sentence for attacking the boy's mother and an additional 3-year term for a hate crime. All of the sentences are set to run consecutively.
Czuba declined to speak on his own behalf on Friday. It did not appear he had any family members in court to support him.
The victims had been been renting rooms in Czuba’s home when he launched into anti-Muslim rants after the Oct. 7, 2023, surprise attacks into Israel by Hamas-led militant groups, witnesses said.
The boy’s mother testified that Czuba told her “your people” are killing Jewish people and babies in Israel and that Muslims were not welcome in his home.
Before sentencing, the judge denied defense's bid to vacate the verdicts.
Defense lawyer George Lenard had accused prosecutors at trial of inflaming the emotions of jurors by making points of argument during the rebuttal portion of their case.
“(Prosecutors are) not supposed to give arguments in rebuttal, especially that amount to prejudice,” Lenard said. “It’s our position that these grounds in and of themselves are grounds for a reversal of the verdicts. But if you look at all these errors, if you accumulate them, they’re additional argument for why the court should grant Mr. Czuba a new trial.”
The great uncle, Yousef, said the killer and his victims appeared to get along before Czuba’s frame of mind seemed to spiral of nowhere.
“That’s (a lengthy sentence) not going to be enough. So for peace of mind, Mr Joseph,” Yousef said, turning toward the killer, “say something. Come up. Say something.”
The boy’s father Odai Alfayoumi, echoed that thought, saying the killer had always seemed to like his son before suddenly snapping.
“This is America and when I came right here, I came because this is a free country,” Alfayoumi told reporters outside the courthouse.
“So right now I’m confused. There is, like some people, they call my son, they call him as an angel. And they heard that a lot. Some people too, they call him as a devil Muslim. They make me confused. The same guy, he was looking at my son as an angel (and) right now, he call him as a devil. So I don't know. This is America?"
Samira Puskar reported from Joliet and David K. Li from Los Angeles County.
