HANOVER – Less than a month after prosecutors dropped a criminal charge against a former Dartmouth College student for allegedly vandalizing a menorah display on the college campus in 2020, a Grafton County grand jury has handed up an indictment alleging the vandalism was committed by a different former Dartmouth student.

Zachary Zhao Wang, of Syosset, N.Y., has been charged with criminal mischief for allegedly shooting out the lights of a menorah display and shooting college buildings on the night of Dec. 15, 2020, according to the indictment. Wang is scheduled to be arraigned on June 20 at 9 a.m. in Grafton Superior Court, according to court records.

Wang’s name first surfaced earlier this month when Carlos Wilcox, who was previously named by police as the student who fired the BB gun, identified Wang in court papers as the companion with him at the time who allegedly fired the shots.

As part of the nol pros agreement reached between prosecutors and Wilcox for his involvement in the incident, Wilcox was ordered to pay restitution and meet with members of the Upper Valley Jewish community and perform community service.

Wilcox, a member of the Class of 2023 and a sophomore at the time of vandalism, left the college in the fall of 2021, according to The Dartmouth, the college’s student newspaper.

The indictment against Wang, who turned 24 on Saturday, alleges that he participated in the “planning” of the vandalism with Wilcox, now 21, in addition to “shooting a menorah and buildings on the Dartmouth campus with a BB gun.”

Wang, whom The Dartmouth identified as a member of the Class of 2020 and whose LinkedIn profile lists him as a classics major and law student in Dallas, did not respond to a request for comment sent to his college email address and social media profiles.

Wang’s indictment is sparse on details but according to Wilcox’s nol pros agreement with prosecutors, the two — who both wrote for the conservative student journal The Dartmouth Review — went to Walmart in West Lebanon on Dec. 11, 2020, and purchased a Daisy Red Ryder Carbine BB gun.

Three days later, on Dec. 15, they together left the offices of The Dartmouth Review at 8:11 p.m. and walked north on South Main Street with Wilcox carrying the BB gun. A few minutes later, when they crossed Wheelock Street and reached the east side of North Main Street, Wang took the BB gun from Wilcox and, over a three-minute period, “fired the BB gun at the publicly displayed menorah on the Dartmouth Green, striking each of the illuminated lights,” the court filing said.

The two friends then continued to walk north on North Main Street to the Kappa Kappa Kappa fraternity house on Webster Avenue — the national fraternity, commonly referred to as Tri-Kap, changed its name to Kappa Pi Kappa last week to disassociate its initials from those used by the Ku Klux Klan — which they entered with Wang carrying the BB gun.

Under the nol pros agreement, Wilcox must pay up to $2,053.64 in restitution to Dartmouth College and within one year is required to meet with group of up to 10 community members to be organized by Rabbi Moshe Gray of Dartmouth Chabad.

Gray said Thursday that he has been in touch with Wilcox, who he said “expressed remorse” for his involvement in vandalizing the menorah. Gray said that he expects to set up a meeting with Wilcox and members of the college and Upper Valley Jewish community “in September, when all the students are back.”

“He was owning that he was in the wrong place at the wrong time and was sorry for not doing more to stop it,” Gray said of his conversation with Wilcox, adding that he believes Wilcox’s remorse is sincere.

But the work at healing is only beginning, Gray said.

“It’s not going to be a massive gathering,” Gray said of the future meeting with Wilcox. “It will be with key representatives” and predicts it will be “a good conversation. The goal is always to build that relationship, familiarize things and put names with faces.”

Contact John Lippman at jlippman@vnews.com.

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