Lone Wolf Elie Wiesel Attacker Arrested

A 22-year-old mental patient was arrested for assaulting Holocaust survivor and author Elie Wiesel at a San Francisco hotel earlier this month.

The assailant, Eric Hunt, a Holocaust denier, might also be held up on charges of "attempted kidnapping, false imprisonment, elder abuse, stalking, battery and committing a hate crime."

San Francisco police knew Hunt had cash and was using a credit card, and they tracked him to the Carrier Clinic in Belle Mead. Hunt's mother had helped him check into the facility, which is about 60 miles from his home, investigators said. San Francisco police alerted their counterparts in Montgomery Township, N.J.; they arrested Hunt on Saturday afternoon.

"He had admitted himself there for some type of treatment,'' Montgomery Township police Sgt. Guy Fillebrown said. "He was very polite, docile — there was no resistance,'' he added. "We simply transported him to jail.''

Hunt is a Holocaust denier who in recent weeks traveled to Florida in an unsuccessful attempt to confront Wiesel at a conference there, said Lt. Dan Mahoney, head of special investigations for San Francisco police. Hunt began following Holocaust denial organizations after graduating from college, and although he used the Internet to spread his beliefs, authorities believe Hunt acted alone.

"He appears to be what we call a lone wolf,'' Mahoney said.

Five days after Wiesel was attacked, a man identifying himself as Hunt posted a detailed account of the crime on several anti-Semitic and anti-Israel Web sites. That account matched a description of the attack police provided a few days later. In the online post, Hunt said he cornered Wiesel, the author of more than 40 books based on his Holocaust experiences, to force him into admitting that the Holocaust never occurred.