‘Light it up.’ Man hired firebombers to hit California homes on ‘enemies list,’ feds say
A California man who federal authorities said started a firebombing scheme against his purported “enemies” has been sentenced to 18 years in prison.
David Jah, 47, made a list of people who he believed wronged him after his childhood home in San Francisco was sold, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California.
“When Mr. Jah was unable to achieve his objectives in court, he turned to violence,” said Acting U.S. Attorney Stephanie M. Hinds.
The list included six people across the Bay Area, including neighbors, attorneys involved in the case and the current owner of his old home, the Aug. 3 news release said.
Jah shared that list with two other people — Kristopher Alexis-Clark, 27, of Vallejo and Dennis Williams, 41, of Fairfield — and paid them $800 to $5,000 to throw lit “Molotov” cocktails through their house windows, according to a complaint.
They marked their first target in October 2018 and Alexis-Clark received a text from Jah, saying “Light it up, call when done completely.”
But the plan went askew.
The suspects targeted the wrong house. Instead of throwing the flaming bottle at an “enemy,” Williams tossed it into the neighbor’s window — an accident that he claimed was due to his bad eyesight, according to a sentencing memo.
The bottle smashed through a living room window and set the room ablaze. The residents inside burned their hands and feet attempting to put out the flames with fire extinguishers. Ultimately, the fire caused $35,000 in damage.
Jah wasn’t happy about the error or the lack of damage done to the home.
“A for effort, but the task is not complete,” Jah texted Alexis-Clark two days after.
Jah met with the two men on Oct. 31, 2018 at a casino to plan further attacks and on Nov. 3 Alexis-Clark and Williams firebombed the homes of two more victims in Danville, California, the sentencing memo states.
Jah’s efforts to keep his childhood home
Jah’s childhood home had been in his family since his grandmother first owned it. When she passed away, she gave the home to his mother and aunt.
Following his mother’s death in 2000, he became fixated on keeping the home while grieving his mother’s death, Jah’s attorney Randy Sue Pollock said in court documents.
But his cousin, administrator of the estate, wanted to sell the home.
His lengthy legal battle to keep the home became a “crusade” for him, Pollock said, to which overwhelmed him and brought on a “compulsive behavior.”
Jah’s attempts to keep the home were unsuccessful. It sold in February 2016, which triggered a string of nine arson attacks and two drive-by shootings that started the following month and lasted through November 2018, when Jah was arrested, according to the federal sentencing memo.
Prosecuting attorneys said no one was “seriously hurt” in the attacks but “that was solely due to the incompetence of the men Mr. Jah hired to carry out these attacks,” the memo states.
A probation officer wrote that Jah had “hired at least three other individuals” — besides Alexis-Clark and Williams — to carry out some of the attacks, but Jah’s attorney said there is no evidence of that, according to a sentencing memo on Jah’s behalf.
Jah was indicted by a federal grand jury in October 2020 on one count of conspiring to commit arson, related to the Nov. 3 firebombing in Danville. He was found guilty by a jury in May 2021. Besides the 18-year prison sentence he received Aug. 3, Jah faces three years of supervised release.
Alexis-Clark and Williams both pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit arson, attempted arson and possession of an unregistered Molotov cocktail.
They haven’t been sentenced yet.
This story was originally published August 12, 2021 at 4:08 PM with the headline "‘Light it up.’ Man hired firebombers to hit California homes on ‘enemies list,’ feds say."
