A rich advert inheritor who allegedly torched a Jewish man’s Israeli flag at a Columbia College protest pleaded not responsible in Manhattan courtroom Monday — as his lawyer had a snarky retort when requested in regards to the case.
James Carlson, 40, and protection lawyer Moira Meltzer-Cohen have been requested in the event that they wished to make an announcement after he entered the plea on prison mischief and different expenses.
“Not even a bit of bit,” Meltzer-Cohen quipped.
The personal prison protection lawyer focuses on “authorized assist and schooling for social motion teams working towards collective liberation … and different attorneys searching for to be taught extra in regards to the substance and tradition of representing radicals,” in line with her agency’s web site.
Assistant District Lawyer Ryan Falk advised the courtroom that prosecutors wouldn’t offer Carlson a deal and mentioned there was “intensive proof” and “intensive video surveillance” within the case in opposition to him.
The skilled agitator and lawyer by commerce was then launched on his personal recognizance.
Carlson is accused of snatching the Israeli flag of a Jewish man from one other demonstrator at an April 20 protest — and started burning it with a lighter earlier than a witness pulled it away, courtroom data present.
Carlson moreover participated in an April 30 incident the place he unlawfully entered the Ivy League college’s Hamilton Corridor and was charged with prison trespassing, courtroom data present.
Whereas he was being processed by NYPD at 1 Police Plaza, Carlson allegedly kicked and broke a glass panel in a holding cell, the indictment mentioned.
He pleaded not responsible to expenses within the incident, in line with courtroom data.
“This defendant’s alleged exercise went past authorized and peaceable protest. Committing arson in a crowded protest endangers the protection of others, and any such habits won’t be tolerated” mentioned District Lawyer Alvin Bragg in a press assertion.
“We are going to proceed to work intently with the NYPD and native faculties and universities to make sure the protection of scholars, employees, and group members throughout any protest or demonstration,” Bragg mentioned.
Carlson has no identified hyperlinks to Columbia, in line with the indictment.
He was additionally among the many anti-Israel protesters in January who wreaked havoc on town by blocking site visitors on the Holland Tunnel in addition to the Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Williamsburg Bridges in a “Shut it Down for Palestine” rally, a supply beforehand mentioned.
His rap sheet dates again to a minimum of 2005, when he was charged in San Francisco for collaborating within the violent “West Coast Anti-Capitalist Mobilization and March Towards the G8,” the place protesters cracked a police officer’s cranium, practically killing him, and tried to set a police cruiser ablaze, in line with a Metropolis Corridor supply and information studies.
Carlson was charged on the time with suspicion of tried lynching, malicious mischief, battery to a police officer, aggravated assault on a police officer with a lethal weapon and willful resistance to a police officer that ends in critical bodily harm, in line with the supply.
The fees have been dropped in 2007, CNN reported.
He’s the inheritor of the deceased promoting exec Richard “Dick” Tarlow and his spouse, Sandy Carlson Tarlow, referred to as the “public face of Ralph Lauren,” who left behind tens of tens of millions of their property.
Carlson, who has a baby with mannequin Kim Heyrman, purchased a 2,893-square-foot, three-story townhouse with 4 wood-burning fireplaces and a carriage home in Park Slope in 2019 for $2.3 million, in line with property data and on-line listings.
He’s among the many few individuals charged in reference to Anti Israel protests at Columbia, after 31 circumstances have been dismissed by the DA’s workplace in June.
Carlson is due again in courtroom on Dec. 9.
Supply hyperlink
