ABLAVSKY AND ASKEW: When it came out that the perp in last week's City Hall shooting, Othniel Askew, was a political opponent of the victim, James Davis, it turned on a lightbulb in the heads of many Brandeisians who remember the Ilya Ablavsky case. Ablavsky in 1999 was a Brandeis student who also decided to run for mayor of Waltham; Ablavsky was subsequently expelled from Brandeis- and arrested- for making bomb threats against both a student dorm and the home of his opponent in the mayor's race.
Now, new revelations in the Davis/Askew case have an even starker parallel with the Ilya Case- Askew allegedly shot Davis because he believed the councilman was blackmailing him about his HIV status- a claim identical to one Ablavsky supposedly made. Hell, maybe that's where Othniel got the idea.
UPDATE: Ilya Ablvasky writes in to say that he is not in prison or a mental insitution, and has in fact graduated college and is living a quiet life in Massachusetts. Good for him.
Posted by Stephen Silver at July 28, 2003 11:56 PM