Jewish Family’s Home Vandalized With Graffiti

Anti-Semitic graffiti painted on a Westlake Village house and car Friday was being investigated as a hate crime by the Sheriff’s Department, but deputies and the victims said they have not been able to pinpoint a motive for the attack.

Sheri Lesser said she and her husband, Lawrence, were startled by a loud banging noise outside their Belham Court home about 12:15 a.m., looked around but did not see anything. Less than an hour later they heard two more bangs outside, then someone shouted, “Die, Jew!” she said. The Lessers are Jewish.

The couple went outside and found swastikas painted on their house, driveway, front gate and car. “Die Jew” was painted on a wall.

“It was shocking,” Lesser said. “We called the sheriff. My husband got his gun out and we stayed in the garage until the deputies came.”

Sgt. Mike Santander estimated the damage at $5,500. He said there have been no similar incidents in the neighborhood near the Westlake Village Golf Course. “They haven’t had any problem there in the past,” Santander said. “We haven’t had any trouble in that area either.”

The vandalism came one night after the Lessers encountered a car driving slowly, without lights, in their neighborhood. When the couple drove up to the car, someone inside it shone a flashlight on them and sped away. But Santander said there was no clear connection between that incident and the vandalism.

The car that was vandalized was parked across the street from the Lessers’ house, Sheri Lesser said.

“It had to have been someone who knew the car was ours,” she said. “Why would they do this? There is no reason for it. It is the work of a sick, demented mind.”

The Lessers, who operate a video production company, have lived in the house for 15 years. A Westlake Village cleaning crew sandblasted the graffiti off the pavement and walls of the house Friday afternoon. The Lessers had their car towed to a dealer to be repainted.

Sheri Lesser said she and her husband have no plans to change their lifestyle. “They are not going to intimidate us,” she said. “I am not scared of them and I am not leaving.”

Jerry Shapiro, associate director of the Los Angeles office of the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, examined the vandalism and said his group, which monitors hate crimes, will conduct its own investigation and provide security and counseling for the Lessers.

“We regard this as a cowardly, criminal act,” Shapiro said.

Last year the league announced plans to open an office in the West San Fernando Valley because of its large Jewish community and evidence of increasing anti-Semitic acts. Shapiro said the office should be open by the end of this year.

A study by the county Commission on Human Relations found that hate crimes have steadily increased in the last seven years. Last year about a third of the county’s 672 reported hate crimes took place in the San Fernando Valley.