Christian supremacist content creators shouted anti-Islam obscenities at a vigil being held in memory of Tampa business owner Sayfollah Musallet last Sunday night, Jan. 11, outside Musallet’s former ice cream shop.
Musallet was born in Port Charlotte, Florida. and was raised in the Tampa Bay area. He went to visit his family in Palestine’s West Bank last year when he was killed by unidentified Israeli settlers at 20 years old. The disrupted vigil was commemorating the six month anniversary of his death.
During the vigil, three men approached with megaphones and began shouting vulgar, provocative statements about the Muslim prophet Muhammad while calling the Muslim vigil attendees terrorists, video shows. Violent and sexual obscenities, were included in the harassment, with the men regularly describing child sexual abuse in front of the families and the children in attendance.
A similar incident took place last November at the University of South Florida when three Christian supremacist content creators hurled obscenities and waved bacon in front of students during their morning prayer. Two of the men interrupting the vigil appear to be the same content creators from the USF incident: Christopher Svochak and Ricardo Yepez.
The USF police department said that they referred the incident to State Attorney Suzy Lopez’s office, recommending criminal charges be brought against Svochak and Yepez for disrupting a religious assembly with a hate crime enhancement. A representative for State Attorney Lopez told CL there are currently no updates to the case.
In a video of the incident recorded by Creative Loafing Tampa Bay senior photographer Dave Decker, Svochak and Yepez both proudly touted the lack of prosecution brought against them. “You people, you got me fired,” Yepez said. “You terrorists came after us wanting to put us in prison for five years. And yet I still stand here.”
“We hate your stupid religion still, and we’re free,” Svochak can be seen saying in a video he posted to his Facebook page. “We never were arrested by your stupid … press conferences.”
Musallet’s parents were in attendance at the vigil, according to attendee Jared Dahan, who is affiliated with the Progressive Jewish Coalition. “They were inciting violence,” Dahan told CL of the disruptors.
Dahan said that an incident occurred when one of the men in attendance began insulting Musallet’s mother.
“This is for my son,” Dahan recalled the woman saying. “My son died. Can we please not do this?”
At this point, Dahan said he observed one of the men raising a hand as if to strike her. Dahan said that this was when a “scuffle” occurred and a business owner in the complex called the police and asked the men to leave.
Hillsborough County Sheriff deputies arrived on scene and separated the two groups. Trespass orders were eventually issued for the three men who were then escorted from the parking lot, according to call logs provided by an HCSO spokesperson.
Attendees that CL spoke with had mixed opinions on HCSO’s response. CAIR-FL Interim Executive Director Hiba Rahim said that she understood that it was a difficult situation and that verifying information can take time, but also wished the men had been trespassed sooner so that the memorial could continue as planned.
Attorney and former prosecutor Mohammad Mubarak told CL that he attempted to explain to deputies that the business owners had written permission from the property owner giving them authority to trespass individuals from the parking lot of the business. According to Mubarak, deputies maintained that they needed to contact the property owner to verify and could not issue trespass orders for the men until then.
As he did the last time he disrupted a Muslim gathering in Tampa, Svochak quickly created a fundraiser for himself. He posted the fundraiser—created through unmoderated Christian fundraising platform GiveSendGo—on social media, saying that two of his cameras were stolen by the vigil attendees. A spokesperson for HCSO said theft wasn’t reported in the initial call notes, and Svochak did not respond when asked if he filed a police report.
Following November’s USF incident, this reporter spoke with one of the disruptors who worked alongside Svochak, Richard Penkoski. Penkoski said his actions were not criminal, citing several court cases. One was Snyder v. Phelps, in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Westboro Baptist Church could not be held liable for picketing a soldier’s funeral with slogans like “thank God for 9/11.”
The Westboro Baptist Church is a well-known inflammatory group whose inflammatory protests have brought bipartisan denouncement, including from the Southern Baptist Convention. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, WBC has received a sizable income from court cases filed in the aftermath of their provocative demonstrations.
Since WBC popularized the model, a growing number of independent “street preachers” have adopted an evolved version of the same playbook: find something provocative that will get attention, and capitalize on the attention. Rather than lawsuits, crowd fundraisers seem to be the revenue stream of choice for these controversy-creating internet personalities.
No charges have been announced by HCSO or the state attorney’s office following the vigil disruption.
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This article appears in Jan. 15 – 21, 2026.
