Margoliash Is Back in Jail, This Time After Allegedly Assaulting A Pregnant Woman, Biting Her Husband, And Attempting A Kidnap. Why Is the Marin I-J Still Under-Reporting His Violent Priors?

Also: In September, Royce McLemore blew the whistle on the MHA hack, in which $950K was stolen. The Marin I-J then waited 74 days to report the breach. And: Ethnic Studies Under Attack In Marin

I. Margoliash Re-Offends Prior To December 9 Sentencing

In what could only be considered a surprise to anyone who had missed the hearings for “People Vs. Margoliash” regarding the first-night-of-Ramadan attack on the Islamic Center of North Marin (March 11, 2024), the defendant, David J. Margoliash, has been arrested again.

In this most recent incident, Margoliash is alleged to have attacked a pregnant San Rafael resident whose home he was attempting to burgle in the wee hours of November 30. When the resident’s sleeping husband awoke and came to her assistance, Margoliash is alleged to have bitten the husband’s hand, before being ejected from the home and fleeing into the night.

Margoliash then wandered in and out of an assisted living facility on Fifth Street, where he allegedly tried to kidnap an elderly patient by posing as a transport worker. Nurses at the facility questioned Margoliash’s credentials, then pursued him outside until police arrived and detained him without incident.

Margoliash is now being held without bail at the Marin County Jail.

A Once-Prominent Family

David Margoliash is the 48-year-old grandson of the late Sam Margoliash, a respected and accomplished Marin County dentist who made significant contributions to local religious and civic life. Sam Margoliash was both a founding member of Kol Shofar, and one of the first board members of Rodef Sholom.

It is unclear whether that familial connection influenced how leniently David Margoliash has routinely been treated both by Marin County Superior Court and by local media throughout his many previous run-ins with the law. To this date, the assault on the Islamic Center remains severely undercharged by the Marin County District Attorney’s office and under-reported in local media.

Even today, the Marin Independent-Journal’s Cameron MacDonald filed an article on Margoliash’s most recent assault that again omitted the severity of Margoliash’s physical and chemical attacks at the Islamic Center, and omitted Margoliash’s long record of violent assaults.

Meanwhile, David Margoliash has been on probation while awaiting sentencing. The violent attack on the Islamic Center was never even investigated as a hate crime.

As you may recall from my prior articles, prior to Margoliash’s release from jail, Judge Kelly V. Simmons had provided Margoliash with a day pass out of the Marin County Jail to help the Novato Police search for the gun which Margoliash either tossed or hid as he was fleeing from the Islamic Center. A day pass out of jail for a defendant is unusual, to put it mildly. Most attorneys I spoke with declared the day pass as “unheard of.”

In fact, the routine leniency afforded to Margoliash, who is white, stands in stark contrast to the manner in which most Black and Latino defendants have been treated in Marin County Superior Court.

For much of the last six months, I have worked hard to raise awareness of Margoliash’s assault on the multi-racial Islamic Center of North Marin, as our local elected officials refused to acknowledge that the assault had even happened. Their failure to acknowledge that assault should shock you, if you have it left in you to be shocked by what occurs in this county.

The victims in this case remain reluctant to make their voices heard in public not only in fear of Margoliash, who seems uncontrollable, but in fear of what retaliation they might suffer in the County simply for speaking up for themselves. These are not irrational fears for Muslims in Marin County to hold.

My reporting on the case resulted in an angry outburst against me by Margoliash in the hallway of the courthouse in full public view on November 4, when his sentencing was initially scheduled.

On that November 4, Margoliash, a large and ungainly man who stands nearly a foot taller than myself, shouted that he was going to sue me and expressed his rage for the articles I had written about the case. He stated that he this had been “torture” for him, adding angrily that his “family has been here for four generations” and that “this was all so hard on them.” He repeatedly claimed that the assault “was all a misunderstanding” and that he had done nothing wrong.

These claims seemed to contradict one of the essential court documents Margoliash himself had written, in which he expressed remorse for the wrong he had done, and pledged to make sure it would never happen again.

But it has “happened” again, this time to residents of San Rafael. And we should not be surprised. Because to Margoliash, violence is a thing that either “happens” or “does not happen”. His own violence is not something for which Margoliash seems capable of accepting responsibility.

Because his outburst in the hallway so contradicted his claim of remorse and responsibility, I mentioned it to the bailiff and to Margoliash’s public defender; DDA Abrile was unwilling to talk to me. And this, too, seems consistent with the blasé attitude the DA’s office has maintained toward Margoliash’s long history of violent assault.

But had the County and local media fulfilled their tasks responsibly, the latest assault which Margoliash is alleged to have committed might not have occurred.

There is so much more to write about this case. I’ll continue after the December 9 sentencing.

II. $950,000 Goes “Poof!” Into Thin Air After MHA Is Hacked

Over the busy Thanksgiving weekend, you may have missed news that the Marin Housing Authority lost $950,000 earmarked for Burbank Housing’s rehabilitation of Golden Gate Village, the historic if long-neglected public housing project in Marin City. The funds were stolen via an easily preventable computer hack, and will most likely never be recovered. This was allowed to occur despite two reports from the Marin Civil Grand Jury (2020 and 2024) urging the County to improve its cybersecurity.

One immediate aspect that should not be overlooked is the role of local media in quashing the story for over two months after Golden Gate Village Residents’ Council head Royce McLemore had publicly blown the whistle on the hack. McLemore’s statement was made in a public meeting of the Marin Housing Authority on September 17, apparently just one day after the County first realized its first payment to Burbank Housing had never reached Burbank.

Video of McLemore’s September 17 statement:

So why did it take the Marin Independent-Journal’s Richard Halstead another 74 days to report the story, dropping the article on a Saturday — in the middle of a busy Thanksgiving weekend — when people would be least likely to read it?

This is part of a long pattern of delayed or missing reporting in the local paper of record, which is better understood if you know that the Marin I-J has a “communications partnership” with the County of Marin, as first disclosed by then County Health Officer Matt Willis on March 28, 2023.

A Pattern of Delayed or Incomplete Reporting in Local Media:

The long delay in the I-J’s reporting was reminiscent of local media’s failure to report on the shotgun death of prominent attorney Darrick Chase last year. In that case, the I-J took a full 68 days to report the death of Darrick Chase, who held elected office in Marin County. It was a death I easily found through a routine examination of the Marij County Coroner logbook on January 31, 2023. (The Pacific Sun didn’t report the death at all.)

Image of relevant Coroner logbook page:

In fact, the Marin I-J did not report Chase’s death until AFTER his vacated seat had been appointed. Despite multiple inquiries regarding their 68-day silence on Chase’s passing, the I-J never provided explanation. But by refusing to report either Mr. Chase’s passing, or the resulting vacant seat prior to the replacement being appointed, the I-J essentially worked to stifle applications for the open seat. (At the time of his death, Chase had been representing the son of former Google executive Allan Thygesen in a contentious custody case, another fact not reported by any media in Marin.)

But as I have consistently chronicled in this substack, this is hardly the limit of the I-J’s failures to report in a timely and complete fashion.

The Marin Independent-Journal’s Richard Halstead Once Again Misses The Story:

Halstead’s article on the MHA hack misses the larger point by failing to ask why MHA gifted Burbank Housing with a $1.4 million contract merely to come up with a plan for rehabbing the long-neglected building.

Many in the County recall that a star-studded panel of housing and architectural experts had convened with the Golden Gate Village Residents’ Council to develop a green revitalization plan that was not only innovative and pragmatic, but which had been offered to the County free of charge.

According to those who worked on the plan, the county did not even read the plan, but turned around and gave a $1.4 million contract to Burbank Housing merely to develop an alternate plan. (Whether Burbank Housing had the expertise to do that is another issue entirely.)

And now $950,000 of that $1.4 million promised to Burbank has vanished into thin air.

Halstead’s article doesn’t even quote or consult anyone living in Golden Gate Village, which is the impacted community. That missing $950,000 will likely result in diminished repairs for Golden Gate Village. That’s something an honest reporter would have wanted to check in on. (According to one Golden Gate Village resident I spoke with yesterday, the County did not inform them of the hack until November 21.)

This is a developing (and much deeper) story, and I hope to provide updates soon.

III. The Attack on Ethnic Studies Amid The Marin Independent-Journal’s Ongoing Failure To Identify Endorsed Candidates’ Ties To Groups That Lobby for Israel

In 2024, the I-J endorsed fiercely pro-Israel candidates Jenny Holden and Yoav Schlesinger, without identifying their roles in an ugly attack on the First Amendment at the San Anselmo Town Library, or their involvement with the San Francisco-based “JCRC Bay Area”. (And, in Schlesinger’s case, his prior work as a director at the infamous American Israel Public Affairs Committee.)

The well-funded nonprofit group JCRC Bay Area has for years served as a de facto lobbying group for Israel, with its activities including ginning up small mobs to target ceasefire proponents (including myself and the late, much-loved David Glick here in Marin), as well as countless others across the Bay Area.

And shortly before the 2024 election, the JCRC spun off an official lobbying group, known as BAJA (Bay Area Jewish Action). This is in addition to their BANJO (Bay Area Network of Jewish Officials) group, most of whom were ferried, on the JCRC’s dime, to Israel along with other elected officials. These trips included officials as varied as school district superintendents and their board members, to mayors and city council members. Few of these trips were properly disclosed to the public.

Both Holden and Schlesinger won their seats (Holden at Tamalpais Union High School District and Schlesinger on San Anselmo Town Council) with the help of the I-J and its derelict reporting. (Marin DSA unfortunately played a role in the election of Schlesinger.)

Ethnic Studies In The Crosshairs

And this is where it gets interesting, as neither Holden nor Schlesinger have any experience serving in public office. Holden, a member of Marin Jewish Parents and Allies Union (MJPAU) has positioned herself not only against the First Amendment, but as a fierce opponent of ethnic studies classes.

This is especially noteworthy given the location: the Marin County Office of Education has shepherded millions of dollars of state monies into the local Jewish Family and Children’s Services Holocaust Center for the “California Teachers Collaborative”. The CTC is pushing a narrowly defined “Holocaust and genocide” project that whitewashes both US and Israeli complicity in various, well, genocides. But how can we ever develop a saner foreign policy if young people don’t understand the serious mistakes leadership made in the past?

Unreported in the Marin I-J are the attacks throughout the Bay Area on ethnic studies classes, often by JCRC-affiliated elected reps, including here in Marin. I have covered some of these issues earlier in this article, and I am pleased to note two recent pieces of good news:

1) An earlier attack on ethnic studies classes in the Pajaro Valley Unified School District failed miserably, with three pro-ethnic studies candidates winning their seats in the majority Latino school district in the November election.

2) This past Saturday, a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit that alleged ethnic studies teachers in California had engaged in teaching antisemitic and anti-Israel content. This lawsuit was one in a series of anti-teacher lawsuits facilitated by the arch-conservative Judicial Watch and the pro-Israel Deborah Project.

Tonight, at the Tamalpais Union High School District:

You may be able to view some of this anti-ethnic studies activity tonight (Tuesday, December 3) at the TUHSD meeting, where the 9th grade ethnic studies curriculum is on the agenda.

The issue was previously discussed at the last TUHSD Board meeting. On that date, two parents falsely asserted that the ethnic studies class omitted African-Americans, a claim that was contradicted by a third parent who took issue with the curriculum’s inclusion of the Black Panthers but no Martin Luther King, Jr.

How could they complain that the class excludes reference to African-Americans and subsequently complain that the class includes the Black Panthers? The Black Panthers were (spoiler alert!) African-American.

Worse, the premise by the parent that it is bad to discuss the Black Panthers but better to discuss Martin Luther King Jr. struck me as missing the point because it hews to a false notion of MLK Jr. as a passive, non-radical leader.

But was there anything more radical than MLK Jr.’s furious “Letter From Birmingham Jail”? Or his full opposition to the Vietnam War? Or his campaign for poor people? If MLK Jr. were not radical and subversive, why was he targeted so fiercely by the FBI?

The fact that MLK’s holiday is now publicly celebrated by the same FBI that once targeted him speaks to how his radical positions have been essentially erased.

You wonder how much any of these parents actually know about Martin Luther King, Jr., let alone the Black Panthers.

Maybe what they need is an ethnic studies class!

Thanks as always to patient readers of this substack.

©️2024 Eva Chrysanthe