The attorney for the New Jersey man accused of attacking novelist Elie Wiesel in a San Francisco hotel last year urged jurors to consider his client’s fragile state of mind at the time of the incident.

The Superior Court jury will begin deliberating today on the fate of Eric Hunt, 24, who is charged with six counts, including attempting kidnapping, false imprisonment and elder abuse, following a February 2007 encounter with the Nobel Prize-winning author.

Law enforcement officials arrested Hunt — who at the time was being held in a mental institution in New Jersey — after they discovered he posted an account of the Wiesel attack on several anti-Semitic blogs.

Hunt has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. His attorney, John Runfola, said he has a previously undiagnosed bipolar disorder.

wreisman@sfexaminer.com