A California man was arrested after allegedly breaking into a sleeping couple’s home, where he hit a pregnant woman with a flashlight and bit her husband’s hand, and for sneaking into a nursing home in an attempt to kidnap a resident.
David Jonathan Margoliash, 48, is charged with felony burglary, felony assault with a deadly weapon and felony attempted kidnapping. He is being held in Marin County Jail without bail, according to the San Rafael Police Department.
Margoliash entered a home on Ross Street in San Rafael on Saturday at about 1 a.m., when a man who lives in the home called police to report that someone had just entered through the back door and attacked him and his pregnant wife before running away.
The woman told police she had woken up to a noise and found Margoliash in her living room before screaming and waking up her husband.
Margoliash then struck her in the head with a flashlight, which resulted in minor injuries. She was able to take the flashlight away from Margoliash, and her husband became involved in a physical fight with the suspect to push him out of the house.
During the fight, Margoliash bit the man’s hand. The man was eventually able to force Margoliash out of the house and then pushed him down a flight of patio stairs. Margoliash fell to the pavement below and ran away.
The husband and wife were treated for injuries at a local hospital.
Multiple police agencies, including one department’s K-9 unit, searched for Margoliash but were initially unsuccessful.
Police then received a call at 5:18 a.m. from a skilled nursing facility in the 1600 block of Fifth Avenue about a man claiming to be an employee of a transport service who wanted to take an elderly patient to Santa Rosa.
Officers responded to the scene and learned Margoliash had walked in and out of the facility several times claiming to be a patient transport service employee. The facility’s employees requested credentials, but he was unable to verify his claims. The employees determined he was lying and prevented him from taking the patient, and Margoliash left the facility.
But two nurses were still following Margoliash and notified an officer in the area who then took the suspect into custody.
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Margoliash was identified as the suspect in the burglary of the couple’s home and in the attempted kidnapping of a nursing home patient.
While in custody, police said Margoliash made several incriminating statements about his actions in both cases.
Margoliash has an extensive criminal history, which includes his arrest in March for dousing a member of a mosque with pepper spray at the Islamic Center of North Marin during Ramadan. He is awaiting sentencing for that incident after pleading guilty.
