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The man charged with a hate crime for his role in the wild mob attacks of a pro-Palestinian camp at UCLA last year, took part in a diversion program to avoid prison time, marking the end of the first and only felony cases filed in connection with violence.
28-year-old Marachi Maran Librett was charged with assault on fatal weapons, batteries and hate crimes in two different cases at the UCLA campus last year, court records say. According to court records, under the terms of the July 7 plea bargain, he must attend 90 hours of treatment and anti-bias training. If he complies, all charges will be dismissed.
Marulan Livelett is said to have attacked “chemical weapons protesters” and yelled racism during the May 1st, 2024 brawl. A video published by CNN last year shows a man identified as Marlan-Librett kicking people and trying to hit them with a broken broom.
Attorney Judas Ramsey, who has been filed in court as the victim of the case, pushed him in Marlan Librett into his car in the UCLA parking lot and after Ramsey left the camp on April 28, 2024. Ramsey said he believed Marlan Livelett began chasing him because he was wearing a Kefier scarf.
“From the moment he saw me, he began screaming at me.
Marlan-Librett’s lawyers did not respond to inquiries from The Times.
In the video of the April 28 incident, Marlan Livelett and another man approach Ramsey and the two women and begin screaming at them.
“What’s wrong? Why do you support terrorists?” asks one man.
A spokesperson for the LA County District Attorney’s Office said the defendant’s “youth and lack of criminal history is one of the factors considered in providing him with a transformative plea agreement.”
According to the CNN report, Marlan-Librett graduated from UC Santa Cruz in 2019 and joined the film program at UCLA a year later. His IMDB page shows that he has served as a producer of several small films over the past few years.
Hundreds of people were arrested last year after Palestinian demonstrators built camps at both UCLA and the University of Southern California, but few faced criminal charges. Marlan Librett was the only defendant charged with a felony. Los Angeles City Atty. Hydee Feldstein Soto has filed two other misdemeanor cases related to violence in the camp.
Edan Ong, 19, was caught last year on camera waving pipes at camp residents, records show. ON’s passport was seized after his arrest, but returned to him after the LA County District Attorney’s Office refused to file a felony charge.
It is reportedly suggesting that Feldsteinsoto left the country and joined the Israeli Defence Force before being charged with misdemeanor battery earlier this year. He has not yet appeared in court regarding the current case, and his lawyers have repeatedly refused to speak to the times.
Palestinian protester Matthew Katz has been charged with battery, false imprisonment and resisting arrests at the camp. He denied all wrongdoing through his lawyer Sabrina Darwish.
“I am deeply concerned that the City Attorney’s Office will move forward with accusations that lack both legal merit and support for evidence. Katz is the only protester charged from a Palestinian camp that led to more than 200 arrests last year,” Darwish said in an email. “The decision to prosecute appears to have been affected by more general pressure than the rule of law.”
Feldstein Soto’s office refused to file charges against the 338 protesters arrested on both campuses last year. Seven additional allegations of resisting arrests and obstructing peace, battery, vandalism and assault related to the protest were either denied due to prosecution by Feldsteinsoto or resolved via a pre-filing detour process, records show.
Ramsey believed that Marlan Librett received generous punishment and compared the wider conflict in Gaza, where Palestinian death accusations are surged, as a result of opposition to the Israeli government’s ongoing artillery fire and humanitarian flows.
“If you don’t have this little slapping on your wrist, you can guarantee it if you’re someone else. It’s a microcosm of what’s happening in Palestine… there’s very little punishment,” Ramsey said.
Times staff writer Jaweed Kaleem contributed to this report.
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