Lion heir faces hate crime charges after rabbi threat in Pacific Palisades

A rabbi leading evening prayers in Pacific Palisades says the neighbor in the house next door turned a months-long pattern of hostility into a direct threat to kill him. Los Angeles County prosecutors have now filed three felony hate crime charges against Bruce Lion, the heir to Lion Raisins, accusing him of a civil rights violation and two counts of criminal threats.

The alleged confrontation unfolded on June 5, when Lion is said to have shouted antisemitic threats from his Pacific Palisades home at Rabbi Zushe Cunin, who was conducting an evening prayer service. Cunin is the executive director of the Chabad Jewish Community Center of Pacific Palisades, and he has said the harassment was not a one-off outburst. He described it as behavior that had been building for about four months, with complaints to police made multiple times before the arrest.

That timeline matters because prosecutors are treating the case as criminal intimidation, not protected speech. Their theory is that this was not merely offensive rhetoric in the abstract. They say the threats were aimed at a specific Jewish religious leader, in a religious setting, and that the alleged bias was reinforced by other video circulating online that appears to show Lion outside a Los Angeles Chabad center making additional antisemitic remarks. Cunin has also said the conduct happened in front of children attending religious activities.

Lion was arrested on June 13, about a week after the alleged threats, and later appeared in jail video shouting profanity. Court records show he entered a not-guilty plea on June 18, though the arraignment was delayed after authorities said he refused to leave his jail cell, prompting a judge to order him forcibly brought to court. He was being held on $225,000 bail.

If convicted as charged, Lion could face up to nine years and four months in state prison. Mental competency proceedings are scheduled for July 6 at the Hollywood courthouse, where the case is expected to move into its next stage after the initial courtroom standoff.

The family business has tried to distance itself from the fallout. Lion Raisins said Bruce Lion does not actively participate in the company’s day-to-day operations and condemned antisemitism, racism, discrimination and intolerance. For now, the center of the case is not the family name or the money behind it. It is the alleged threat at prayer, the repeated accusations of bias, and what happens when a neighborhood dispute crosses the line into felony hate crime territory.