Report: Spoiled rich kid (40) who lives in $3.4 townhouse is one of the anarchists who led Columbia University building takeover

NEW YORK, NY - Money cannot buy brains, apparently. At least that is the case of one of the leaders of the Columbia University pro-Hamas, anti-Israel, anti-American demonstrations. According to the New York Post, one of the most violent leaders of those demonstrations is James Carlson, who also uses the pseudonyms Cody Carlson and Cody Tarlow. 

According to sources, Carlson, 40, is your typical limousine liberal–born into obscene wealth who owns a $3.4 million Brooklyn townhouse, impregnated a model, and has a stepmother dating rocker John Cougar Mellencamp. 

A high-ranking NYPD source says Carlson is “a longtime anarchist.” 

According to property records and online listings, Carlson (who doesn’t attend Columbia, by the way) bought the 2,893-square-foot, three-story townhouse that has four wood-burning fireplaces and a carriage house in the Park Slope neighborhood in 2019 for a cool $2.3 million. 

Carlson has a lengthy criminal record dating back to at least 2005 and is one of three children of advertising executives Richard Tarlow and his wife, Sandy Carlson Tarlow. His father died in 2022 at the age of 81 with an estate worth at least $20 million, according to court papers. Richard Tarlow was known for his work with companies such as Revlon, Ralph Lauren, Cuisinart, and Pottery Barn. 

Ironically, he was a longtime supporter of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice and helped underwrite the college’s John Jay Justice Awards,” the Post reported. 

His mother died in 2003 at age 59 and was credited with defining the “public face of Ralph Lauren,” her obituary noted. 

In 2001, the couple sold their namesake firm, Carlson & Partners, to DDB for an undisclosed amount. At that time, the company boasted over 100 employees and had sales of $165 million. 

James Carlson’s stepmother is now dating Mellencamp, as reported by Page Six last year. 

Carlson has two children, including one with supermodel Kim Heyman. 

The Post reached out to “estranged” relatives of the anarchist Carlson and refused to discuss him, clearly embarrassed of him. 

“We don’t talk to him. Leave us alone. He is out of our lives for so many years,” said a woman who answered the phone at his sister’s home when contacted by the outlet. 

Sources describe James Carlson as a “rabble rouser” and attorney by trade. A New York City Hall source told the Post that Carlson is being investigated as a “possible leader” of the pro-Hamas protests that broke out at Columbia University’s Hamilton Hall last week and proceeded to barricade themselves inside. 

The NYPD’s Emergency Services Unit was forced to use an armored truck equipped with an aerial ladder to get inside the building and arrest the anarchists, including Carlson, who was charged with burglary, reckless endangerment, criminal mischief, conspiracy, and criminal trespass. 

“I observed the defendant inside the location with several other individuals,” an NYPD officer wrote in the arrest affidavit. “I did observe doors with shattered windows, doors off hinges, broken desks, and exits blockaded by piled-up chairs.” 

NYPD sources said Carlson also broke a camera inside a holding cell at One Police Plaza while he was being held in custody. He was further charged with criminal mischief as a result of that case. 

Later, Carlson was additionally charged with a hate crime, assault, and petit larceny resulting from lighting an Israel supporter’s flag on fire and then hitting the 22-year-old in the face with a rock during an earlier protest in April. 

A law enforcement source told the Post that Carlson was among a group of anarchists who blocked traffic in the Holland Tunnel and the Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Williamsburg bridges in January. 

In 2005, Carlson was charged in San Francisco for participating in the “West Coast Anti-Capitalist Mobilization and March Against the G8.,” which is hilarious considering capitalism is what got this anti-American buffoon his wealth. That demonstration turned violent when participants cracked a police officer’s skull, nearly killing him, and attempted to set a police vehicle on fire, City Hall sources told the Post and confirmed by news reports. 

In that case, Carlson was charged with suspicion of attempted lynching, malicious mischief, battery to a police officer, aggravated assault on a police officer with a deadly weapon, and wilful resistance to a police officer that results in serious bodily injury, the same source told the outlet. Of course, being California, the charges were dropped in 2007, according to CNN. 

The rabble-rouser has no apparent links to Columbia University. The university and Mayor Eric Adams estimate about 30% of those arrested in the Hamilton Hall takeover were not Columbia students but outside agitators like Carlson.