The Justice Department’s notice of special findings, filed Friday in federal court in Washington, formally opens the government’s effort to secure a death sentence against Elias Rodriguez in the killing of two young staff members of the Israeli Embassy. The charges stem from the evening of May 21, 2025, when Rodriguez opened fire on a group of people leaving an event for young Jewish professionals at the Capital Jewish Museum. Yaron Lischinsky, an Israeli citizen working in the U.S., and Sarah Milgrim, a U.S. citizen, were fatally shot. The couple was about to become engaged.
Rodriguez, who had flown to Washington from Chicago with a handgun packed in his luggage, paced outside the museum before approaching the group and firing, according to prosecutors and surveillance footage reviewed by investigators. Witnesses described him advancing closer as Lischinsky and Milgrim fell, leaning over them and firing additional shots before he appeared to reload and jog away.
Inside the museum, Rodriguez told responding officers, “I did it for Palestine, I did it for Gaza, I am unarmed,” court records show. He later told detectives that he admired Aaron Bushnell, the active-duty Air Force member who set himself on fire outside the Israeli Embassy in February 2024, calling him “courageous” and a “martyr.”
In Friday’s filing, prosecutors wrote that Rodriguez’s actions were “motivated by political, ideological, national, and religious bias, contempt, and hatred” and that he “targeted individuals whom he perceived to have attended an event for young Jewish professionals … to amplify the effect of his crimes.” The hate crime charge, which carries the death penalty eligibility, will require the government to prove that antisemitic bias drove the attack.
U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro, revealing the department’s decision at an unrelated news conference, said the case should deter similar violence. “My message to anyone who seeks to commit political violence in this district — D.C. is not the place. You will be held accountable and you will face the full wrath of the law,” Pirro said.
Defense attorneys for Rodriguez had met with Justice Department officials several weeks before the announcement to present reasons against seeking the death penalty. They did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday. The next hearing in the case is set for June 30; a trial date has not been scheduled.