Jay Sures, vice chairman of United Talent Agency who also serves as a UCLA regent, was ordered on Thursday to pay $150,624 in legal fees to a UCLA graduate student who participated in a protest outside of Sures’ house back in February.
In early February, grad student Dylan Kupsh and around 50 other UCLA students demonstrated outside of Sures’ house in Brentwood where, among other things, one of the protesters left a bloody handprint on his garage door and others held up a sign that said “Jonathan Sures you will pay, until you see your final day.”
Sures, who is Jewish, told TheWrap in February the bloody handprint in particular was “an anti-Semitic act. If I wasn’t Jewish, they wouldn’t do this.”
The students were protesting what they said was Sures’ role in protecting “UC investments in genocide and weapons manufacturing.” The protest was organized by Students for Justice in Palestine at UCLA and Graduate Students for Justice in Palestine at UCLA. Both student groups were suspended 2 weeks after the demonstration.
Meanwhile, Sures identified Kupsh as one of the main organizers of the protest and filed a restraining order against him. Kupsh’s attorneys countered with an Anti-SLAPP (strategic lawsuit against public participation) against Sures, arguing that Sures provided no evidence Kupsh led the protests and that Sures was attempting to qush his first amendment rights. A judge ruled in favor of Kupsh in May, which made Sures liable for the student’s legal fees.
Sures’ attorney didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from TheWrap. In a statement to The Daily Bruin, Kupsh said in part, “I think this hearing really represents the first occasion where real accountability is happening. Hopefully these legal fees represent something more than just one case alone.”
Sures was appointed to the UCLA Board of Regents by former Gov. Jerry Brown in 2019. He previously served as an assistant visiting professor at the UCLA School of Theatre, Film, and Television in 2005 and 2006.
