Jewish suspect accused of assaulting Turkish neighbors was attacked first, his daughter says

Mazo Schwartz says her neighbors were the instigators and attacked her father, Simchon, while he was walking


















The daughter of a Brooklyn man charged with attacking his Turkish neighbors and calling them "Arab terrorists" insisted Tuesday that her father wasn't a bigot.

"I'm very upset because I'm dating a Muslim and my family is being called racist," said Mazo Schwartz, whose father, Simchon Schwartz, 46, was charged with felony hate crimes.

Cops arrested Simchon Schwartz, who is Jewish, at a Mill Basin synagogue after the alleged attack Saturday night on his next-door neighbors Selda and Mustafa Turan.

Although Simchon Schwartz's family and his rabbi claim he was the victim in the ugly incident, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said Simchon Schwartz was the culprit in the encounter in front of his E. 70th St. home. "The information I have is that Mr. Schwartz poured a beer can over Mustafa Turan's wife's head and when Mustafa tried to prevent this, [Schwartz] punched him," Kelly said. "He made anti-Arab statements,"

Mustafa Turan, 32, suffered a gash to his nose that required three stitches. The Turans have not publicly commented on the attack. They remained in seclusion.

Mazo Schwartz claimed Mustafa Turan attacked her dad and shouted an anti-Semitic slur. "My father was walking down the street. They exchanged words, and he [Mustafa Turan] hit him," she said. "We couldn't call the cops because it was the Shabbas."

Her boyfriend of two years, Amer Nicocevic, an Albanian, said Simchon Schwartz never hassled him about being Muslim. "He opened the door and welcomed me in," Nicocevic said.

Simchon Schwartz, a car dealer, was charged with felony assault and felony criminal mischief, both as hate crimes. He could get up to 15 years in prison if convicted.

After his arrest at a Chabad House in Mill Basin, Simchon Schwartz, who smelled of alcohol at the time, kicked out the window of a police car, a law enforcement source said. He was released without bail but ordered to stay away from the Turans, whose townhouse shares a common wall with his home.

Residents of the block where the Turan and Schwartz families live said a feud has simmered between the couples since the Turans moved in a month ago.