Search JTA's historical archive dating back to 1923

Jdl Leader Charges He Has Received Death Threat from Father of an Avowed Nazi

July 31, 1974
See Original Daily Bulletin From This Date
Advertisement

Roger Pavlow, San Francisco area Jewish Defense League coordinator, said today he had filed a complaint against Richard Silva, a probation officer in the city’s police department and father of Sandra Silva, an avowed Nazi who is a clerk in the city’s police department, demanding Silva’s suspension and dismissal from his city job for allegedly making a death threat against Pavlow. The Jewish Telegraphic Agency telephoned Silva but he could not be reached for comment on the charges.

Pavlow told the JTA in New York in a telephone interview that he and his attorney, Terence Hallinan, had made the charge at a press conference today. Pavlow, a 20-year-old student at San Francisco State College, said Silva had allegedly warned that Pavlow would “get a bullet” in his head if he did not stop an investigation of the residency status of Sandra Silva. The woman recently received national attention for her outspoken Nazi views and for regular attendance at Nazi rallies in a Nazi uniform.

CLAIMS WITNESSES HEARD THREAT

Pavlow said the alleged threat had been passed to him by Ed Schlageter,who is probation officer for Pavlow on the JDL coordinator’s conviction for hitting a Nazi at a March 5 meeting of the Board of Education. Pavlow said he had been convicted of battery and given a six-month suspended sentence and 18 months probation. The JDL leader told the JTA that Schlageter had been “pressured” by James Richmond, an attorney who represented Pavlow in the assault case, to pass on the alleged threat.

Pavlow said Quentin Kopp, a member of the Board of Supervisors of San Francisco demanded on July 15 that Miss Silva be dismissed from her police department job on grounds that she was not a resident of San Francisco and subject to dismissal for that reason. Pavlow said Kopp made his demand on the basis of evidence collected by the JDL that Miss Silva lived with her family in San Mateo, a city 20 miles from San Francisco.

Pavlow told the JTA also that he had a tape of the threat, as purportedly passed to him by Schlageter, as well as witnesses who, he claimed, had heard the alleged threat. Asked why he had not filed a request for a warrant for Silva’s arrest for making the alleged threat, Pavlow said his attorney had declared, when that proposal was raised, that the first step should be to obtain Silva’s dismissal and the proposed investigation and that the request for a warrant could then be considered when the purported threat had been established at the requested hearing.

Recommended from JTA

Advertisement