A man charged with a hate crime for his role in a wild mob attack on a pro-Palestinian encampment at UCLA last year has entered a diversionary program to avoid jail time, marking the end of the first and only felony case filed in connection with the violence.
Malachi Marlan-Librett, 28, was charged with assault with a deadly weapon, battery and a hate crime for two different incidents on the UCLA campus last year, court records show. Under the terms of a July 7 plea deal he must attend 90 hours of therapy and anti-bias training, according to court records. If he complies, all charges will be dismissed.
Marlan-Librett allegedly attacked “protesters with chemical weapons” and yelled racial epithets during the melee on May 1, 2024, according to a civil lawsuit filed against UCLA by many of the pro-Palestinian demonstrators. Video published by CNN last year also shows a man identified as Marlan-Librett kicking people and trying to hit them with a broken broom.
Attorney Judah Ramsey, who is listed in court filings as a victim in the case, said Marlan-Librett followed him to his car in a UCLA parking lot and shoved him after Ramsey left the encampment on April 28, 2024. Video provided by Ramsey corroborates his account. Ramsey told The Times he believed Marlan-Librett began following him because he was wearing a keffiyeh scarf.
“From the moment he saw me he, started screaming expletives at me: ‘F— this, f— you,” Ramsey said.
An attorney for Marlan-Librett did not respond to inquiries from The Times.
Video from the April 28 incident shows Marlan-Librett and another man approach Ramsey and two women and begin screaming at them.
“What is wrong with you? Why do you support terrorists?” one man asks.
A spokeswoman for the L.A. County district attorney’s office said the defendant’s “youth and lack of a criminal record were among the factors considered in” offering him a diversionary plea deal.
Marlan-Librett graduated from UC Santa Cruz in 2019 and attended a film program at UCLA one year later, according to the CNN report. His IMDb page shows he has served as a producer on a handful of small films in the past few years.
While hundreds of people were arrested last year after pro-Palestinian demonstrators erected encampments at both UCLA and the University of Southern California, very few faced criminal charges. Marlan-Librett was the only defendant charged with a felony. Los Angeles City Atty. Hydee Feldstein Soto filed two other misdemeanor cases related to violence at the encampment.
Edan On, 19, was caught on camera swinging a pipe at residents of the encampment last year, records show. On’s passport was seized after his arrest, but returned to him after the L.A. County district attorney’s office declined to bring felony charges.
Before Feldstein Soto charged On with misdemeanor battery earlier this year, reports surfaced suggesting he’d left the country and joined the Israel Defense Forces. On has yet to appear in court for his current case and his attorney has repeatedly declined to speak to The Times.
Matthew Katz, a pro-Palestinian protester, was also charged with battery, false imprisonment and resisting arrest at the encampment. He denied all wrongdoing through his attorney, Sabrina Darwish.
“It is deeply concerning that the City Attorney’s Office would move forward with charges that lack both legal merit and evidentiary support. Mr. Katz is the only protester charged from the pro-Palestinian encampment, which resulted in over 200 arrests last year,” Darwish said in an email. “The decision to prosecute appears to be an overreach influenced more by public pressure than by the rule of law.”
Feldstein Soto’s office declined charges against 338 protesters arrested on both campuses last year on suspicion of charges including failing to disperse and trespassing. Seven additional allegations of resisting arrest, disturbing the peace, battery, vandalism and assault related to the protests were either declined for prosecution by Feldstein Soto or resolved via a pre-filing diversionary process, records show.
Ramsey believed Marlan-Librett received a lenient punishment and compared the relative lack of consequences to the broader conflict in Gaza, where Palestinian death tolls are surging in the wake of the Israeli government’s continued bombardments and opposition to the flow of humanitarian aid, including much-needed food and medicine.
“I can guarantee you if it was anybody else there wouldn’t be this little slap on the wrist. It’s a microcosm of what’s going on in Palestine … punishments are few and far between,” Ramsey said.
Times staff writer Jaweed Kaleem contributed to this report.
