A man accused of a crime of hatred for his role in an attack on the wild crowd against a pro-Palestinian camp at the UCLA last year entered a diversion program to avoid a prison sentence, marking the end of the first and the only crime case filed in the context of violence.
Malachi Marlan-Librett, 28, was accused of assault with a fatal weapon, a battery and a crime of hatred for two different incidents on the UCLA campus last year, according to the judicial archives. Under the terms of a advocacy agreement of July 7, he must attend 90 hours of therapy and anti-biais training, according to the judicial archives. If he complies, all accusations will be rejected.
Marlan-Librett would have attacked “demonstrators with chemical weapons” and shouted racial epithets during the fray on May 1, 2024, according to a civil trial posted against the UCLA by many pro-Palestinian demonstrators. A video published by CNN last year also shows a man identified as Marlan-Librett who kicked people and trying to hit them with a broken broom.
Lawyer Judah Ramsey, who is listed in legal files as a victim in the case, said that Marlan-Librett followed him in his car in a UCLA car park and pushed it after Ramsey left the camp on April 28, 2024. The video provided by Ramsey corroborated his account. Ramsey told Times that he believed that Marlan-Librett had started to follow him because he was wearing a Kffiyeh scarf.
“From the moment he saw me, began to shout for explanatives:” F – This, F— You, “said Ramsey.
A Marlan-Librett lawyer did not respond to the requests for Times.
The video of the April 28 incident shows Marlan-Librett and another man approach Ramsey and two women and begin to shout them.
“What’s wrong with you?” Why do you support terrorists? ” asks a man.
A spokesperson for the Los Angeles County Prosecutor’s Office said that “youth and lack of criminal record of the accused were among the factors considered in” offering a diversion advocacy agreement.
Marlan-Librett graduated from the UC Santa Cruz in 2019 and attended a film program at the UCLA a year later, according to the CNN report. His IMDB page shows that he has been a producer on a handful of small films in recent years.
While hundreds of people were arrested last year after pro-Palestinian demonstrators erected camps at the same time at the UCLA and the University of South California, very few have faced criminal charges. Marlan-Librett was the only accused accused of a crime. Los Angeles City Atty. Hydee Feldstein Soto filed two other cases of offense linked to violence at the camp.
Edan On, 19, was taken on the camera swinging a pipe from camp residents last year, according to files. The passport of On was seized after his arrest, but returned to him after the office of the County Prosecutor refused to bring accusations of crime.
Before Feldstein Soto was charged with battery offense earlier this year, reports surfaced by suggesting that he had left the country and joined Israeli defense forces. We have not yet appeared before the court for his current affair and his lawyer repeatedly refused to speak at the time.
Matthew Katz, a pro-Palestinian demonstrator, was also accused of battery, false imprisonment and resistance to arrest during the camp. He denied all the reprehensible acts through his lawyer, Sabrina Darwish.
“It is deeply worrying that the city’s prosecutor’s office was going forward with accusations that lack both legal merit and proof support. Mr. Katz is the only billed demonstrator of the Pro-Palestinian camp, which led more than 200 arrests last year,” said Darwish in an email. “The decision to continue seems to be an excessive excess influenced by public pressure only by the rule of law.”
The Feldstein Soto office refused accusations against 338 demonstrators arrested on the two campuses last year, suspected of charges, in particular not to disperse and in intrusion. Seven additional allegations of resistance to arrest, disrupting peace, battery, vandalism and aggressions linked to the demonstrations were either refused for prosecution by Feldstein Soto, or resolved via a pre-deputy diversion process, according to files.
Ramsey believed that Marlan-Librett had received an indulgent punishment and compared the relative lack of consequences for the broader conflict in Gaza, where Palestinian nonsense increases in the wake of continuous bombing of the Israeli government and opposition to the flow of humanitarian aid, including essential foods and medicine.
“”I can guarantee you that if it was someone else, there would not be this little slap by wrist. It is a microcosm of what is happening in Palestine … The sanctions are rare, “said Ramsey.
The staff editor Jaweed Kaleem has contributed to this report.
