Los Angeles Millionaire Arrested After Months of Anti-Semitic Harassment of Chabad Rabbi and Worshippers

A Los Angeles millionaire was arrested late Friday on suspicion of making terror threats after, police say, he spent months harassing a Chabad rabbi and congregants, including children, from his home next to the Chabad center in Pacific Palisades. The suspect, 64-year-old Bruce Leon, was taken into custody by the Los Angeles Police Department shortly before midnight, following repeated complaints filed by Rabbi Zusha Kunun, the Chabad emissary in the neighborhood.

According to the complaint and a report in the California Post, Leon repeatedly shouted slurs, threats and anti-Semitic and racist remarks from his balcony, disrupting prayers and directing abuse at worshippers, including children. Rabbi Kunun said Leon also verbally attacked him, at one point threatening to “pull the rabbi’s nose,” and repeatedly used racist language against African Americans. In one confrontation, Leon allegedly yelled, “I’m not going anywhere, Jew. Lose some weight, damn it. Go to work. Do something for once. You’re finished, go to hell.”

Kunun told the paper, “It was terrible. I have never experienced anything like this, especially not in front of children. Little children. In this country, to see this kind of hate and anti-Semitism, it is simply unacceptable.” He said the harassment, including anti-Semitic shouting during prayers, was witnessed by families and children, and that community members had contacted police repeatedly in the months before the arrest.

Leon also told the California Post the day before his arrest that he had deliberately blasted Christian music loudly to anger his Jewish neighbors, saying it pleased him to do so. He allegedly told them they were “going to hell,” called them “disgusting pigs,” and claimed without evidence that the rabbi was “hiding bodies” on the Chabad property. Kunun said the harassment began in March, after Leon bought the neighboring home, a multimillion-dollar property. The report said Leon is an heir to a family raisin company and has a significant criminal record, including a 2019 conviction for criminal threats and unlawful firearm possession while violating a restraining order in a domestic violence case, and a 2023 investigation into assault, vandalism and other domestic violence-related offenses.