Retired Supreme Court Justice Richard N. Palmer, who chairs the commission that oversees the public defender service, confirmed the suspension.
The state Division of Public Defender Services suspended one of its lawyers Friday for using his state office in a New Britain courthouse to distribute a Marxist-Leninist newspaper devoted exclusively to anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian content.
The lead article in the paper — The Red Clarion — purports to make the case that Jews “made Zion” to “Stop Marx.” At one point, under the sub headline “Israel, the Grinning Skull of Fascism,“ the article asserts, “The Zionist state has always stood with the oppressors, all over the world, because it is a puppet of the world-imperialist United States… What is Zionism? It is the death of labor. It is the grin of capital. It is the flag of the United States of America.”
Chief Public Defender TaShun Bowden-Lewis referred obliquely to the newspaper in a email message to the 450 or so division staffers that said simply, “The CT Division of Public Defender Services has zero tolerance for any and all hateful and/or discriminatory conduct. This office will be taking appropriate action as required.”
The division-wide email then invited staffers to “reach out” to her or their human resources department “for support.”
Retired Supreme Court Justice Richard N. Palmer, who chairs the commission that oversees the public defender service, elaborated, saying assistant public defender Joshua D. Perldeiner has been suspended for making the newspapers available to the public in the waiting room of the division offices in Superior Court in New Britain.
Concerned that the conflict in the Middle East is provoking antisemitic incidents, the Connecticut State Police have been asked to investigate whether the placement of the newspapers amounts to a hate crime, state prosecutors said.
Lawyers who work in the New Britain courthouse said a stack of the newspapers has been available at the public defenders’ offices for about a week and several of the office clients were reading them Friday while waiting for appointments.
Two lawyers said the same newspapers had been spotted previously at public defender offices in a Hartford courthouse, but were disposed of when discovered by a supervisor.
Perldeiner could not be reached. A woman who identified herself as his wife said the couple is Jewish and asserted that anti-Zionism does not amount to antisemitism.
Perldeiner indicated opposition to what he called the Israeli occupation of Gaza in the days following the Oct. 7 slaughter by the terrorist group Hamas of more than 1,000 Israeli civilians, including infants. His remarks were part of a division-wide email chain following a call for colleagues to support one another following the massacre.
“I assume that support extends to those who don’t share the political, ethical, or moral beliefs of the Israeli occupation – whether that person is Jewish or not,” Perldenier wrote, according to a copy of the email provided to the Courant.
Perldeiner is listed in corporate records on file with the Secretary of the State’s office as the agent and executive editor of the Wallingford-based Unity–Struggle–Unity Press Corp., parent corporation of The Red Clarion.
Unity-Struggle-Unity Press identifies itself as a “Marxist-Leninist project, started and run by a small team of dedicated comrades.”
“Our current focus is the Red Clarion, our mass political newspaper,” the organization says on its website. “As with Lenin, we envision the newspaper as both a mass agitator and propagandist and a mass organizer, and we’re working to build The Clarion along those same, tried-and true Leninist lines, adapted to our contemporary North American context.”
A “Special Edition: Palestine Under Attack” was found in the courthouse office. The articles included a profile of “Genocide Joe Biden” and a “Call to Action” by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
Jewish organizations in Connecticut have raised concerns about rallies and rhetoric, noting the growth of antisemitism across the country, the genocidal nature of the rhetoric and concerns about the Jewish community being targeted for violence. Connecticut Jewish leaders also have said that demonizing the Jewish state is antisemitic.
