by P.D. Lesko
On Oct. 25, a knife-wielding man allegedly attacked long-time downtown restauranteur Sava Lelcaj Farah near Sava, her restaurant on State Street in Ann Arbor. According to an email sent by William Farah (Sava’s husband) to City Council members, the City Administrator and County Prosecutor Eli Savit, Sava Farah “was in her car, in the alley, when he [Javon Trevail Williams, 28] came out and tried to slash her tires. The man, then broke through the driver side window and tried stabbing her. She retreated to the passenger side and [Williams] kept coming in over the broken window. Fortunately for her, a construction worker at the building next door saw this and scared him off.”
After 30 minutes of searching, Sava Farah, armed with a baseball bat according to her husband, cornered her assailant and held him until AAPD officers arrived.
Williams, whose last known address was 2787 Adrienne Dr. in Ann Arbor, is currently in custody at the Washtenaw County Jail.
Sava Farah was not physically injured in the attack. According to Sava and her husband William Farah in emails sent to Mayor Taylor, Prosecutor Eli Savit and all the members of City Council, Javon Williams has allegedly been stalking and targeting Sava Farah for months, including texting threats to Sava.
Ward 2 Council member Kathy Griswold (D) was the only member of Council who replied to the Farah’s emails. Griswold wrote: “First let me apologize for the avoidable terror that you experienced in Ann Arbor and thank you William for talking to me this morning. By way of this email I am requesting a meeting with the Mayor, Acting Police Chief, City Administrator and County Prosecutor in the next 48 hours to discuss corrective actions that can be taken IMMEDIATELY, and especially before the weekend of our UM-MSU evening football game.”
According to Griswold, Mayor Chris Taylor said he would meet and discuss the incident and crime downtown with William Farah in three weeks.
“Downtown has become lawless,” said Griswold, “and Christopher wants to wait three weeks to talk about this? What is the matter with him? A woman was almost murdered.”
15th District Court records show that the alleged assailant, Javon Trevail Williams, has a record of misdemeanor prosecutions going back to 2010. Records show his most recent prosecution was in Jan. 2, 2021 for larceny for less than $200, a misdemeanor. The charges were dismissed by County Prosecutor Eli Savit’s office. Three months later, in March 2021, Williams was once again in Judge Miriam A. Perry’s courtroom, this time being tried for a misdemeanor assault which occurred in Nov. 2020. Williams was found not guilty by a jury. That case was closed in April 2022.
The day after Williams allegedly tried to stab Sava Farah, he was due to appear before Judge Perry in an appearance related to another misdemeanor assault charge. That assault occurred in Aug. 2020. In July of 2022, Williams was found guilty as charged and Perry put Javon Williams on probation until Aug. 2023. Perry also sentenced him to five days of community service in lieu of jail, and court costs of $1,283.95, an amount that has yet to be paid.
In Feb. 2018, just days after he was off probation imposed in 2017, Williams was charged with aggravated assault, a misdemeanor. By April 2018, that charge had been reduced to assault and battery. Williams was assessed $777 in costs and between 2018 and 2020 paid off the amount in $20 increments.
In 2016, Williams was arrested for brandishing a firearm in public. On Jan 25, 2017, he was put on probation by Judge Karen Valvo for 12 months.
In one email to local elected officials as well as Ann Arbor City Administrator Milton Dohoney sent one day after the alleged assault, the Farahs alleged, “We’ve been dealing with a situation for the past 5-6 weeks with one individual breaking and entering into Sava’s and Aventura Restaurant. He’s been stalking her for months, sending threatening text messages that he was going to kill her. We also learned today that he broke into our old office space at 301 E. Liberty Street asking for Sava. He also slashed 8 separate vehicles, two of which were Sava’s (my wife’s tires) and this morning [Oct. 25, 2022] he almost killed her in the back alley [off of Liberty Street].”
In their emails, the Farah’s mentioned Savit’s “no cash bail” and a refusal to prosecute Williams because he suffers from mental illness, as the primary reasons the stalking continued and escalated to include the alleged physical attack with a weapon.
William Farah fumed in an email sent on Oct. 26 to Prosecutor Savit:
“Javon Williams is up for arraignment today or tomorrow… LOCK HIM UP. Don’t be soft on him. None of this ‘cashless bond’ nonsense. What a great time to be a criminal.
– 1 attempted murder
– 2 breaking and enterings
– 8 slashed tires and destruction of property
– stalking and death threats for more than 2 years
– destroying the windows at 301 E. Liberty
I don’t want to see plea deals. NOTHING. We will come to court to testify. We will be in his face. When we’re running around town yesterday trying to find him, Sava herself is the one that stopped him with a baseball bat and held him until police came, we will do what we need to do to protect ourselves.”
William Farah forwarded to Savit text messages allegedly from Williams to Sava Farah. In one text message, the individual texting tells Sava Farah if she reports him, she will “get hurt.”
Savit in his response to William Farah’s Oct. 26 email said, “Again, let me assure you—directly, as the chief prosecutor in this jurisdiction—that we take crimes of this type extremely seriously, and that there is no higher priority for us than public safety. Let me further assure you that everyone in this office is committed to charging and prosecuting such crimes wherever the evidence dictates.”
William Farah responded to Savit and claimed AAPD officers are “frustrated” by the Prosecutor’s Office and its refusal to use their power to get “criminals off the street.”
Farah challenged Savit: “Everything you said in your email and how you prosecute cases flies in the face of what I’m hearing from police, other attorneys in town and the business owners. I want to be clear. We knew who this guy was on or about October 8. We told the police. The ‘company line’ I kept hearing is we need a bullet proof case because our prosecutors won’t do anything about it. We’ll arrest him and he’ll be right back on the streets.”
Politicians like to use crime stats to brag. However, policing experts point out that the number of crimes is secondary to an agency’s clearance (solve) rate. Michigan State Police Quality Assurance Reports (MICR data) for 2020 and 2021, show that the AAPD’s closure (solve) rate plummeted from 36 percent in 2020 to 22.6 percent in 2021, the lowest among all the policing agencies in Washtenaw County. Between 2016-2021, Michigan State Police data show, the AAPD created a backlog of over 20,000 unsolved cases.
William Farah told City Council, Savit and City Administrator Milton Dohoney in an email: “On Saturday October 8 when 3 of our tires were slashed, 1 at Aventura and 2 at Sava’s, and he [allegedly Javon Williams] broke and entered into Aventura with a knife in his hand (he was also chased out) I called in to file a police report. You know what happened. NOTHING. No one called me back….I know the AAPD is doing their best. But one too many officers have asked us to help them and have complained about the prosecutor.”
Farah’s views conflict with City Council’s political push to develop and fund alternative policing strategies. Ward 2 Council member Linh Song, a member of the Police Oversight Committee, and who studied social work, was a proponent of funding alternative strategies to deal with non-violent crime.
William Farah has other ideas about how crime and panhandling in downtown Ann Arbor need to be curbed: “My next step is to go to the media because people should know what is going on in this city. Not that everyone doesn’t know that crime has overrun the city, that people do NOT feel safe anymore downtown. Why there are bums on every corner selling magazines?? Why has the city closed down half the streets on a daily basis, making downtown a ghost town, killing business and letting these people roam the streets. Open the streets. Get more police out there and arrest people.”
The Ann Arbor Independent contacted William and Sava Farah for a comment and William Farah responded that the Farahs have no comment at this time.
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