Sexually explicit text messages detail blackmail attempt by activist Najee Ali
Civic leaders, elected officials, and media remain silent after details emerge of celebrated activist Najee Ali’s harassment of a prominent Black female doctor
WARNING: This article contains graphic language. Reader discretion advised.
PART TWO
By Jasmyne Cannick
LOS ANGELES — Sexually explicit text messages to a prominent Los Angeles doctor from local community activist Ronald Todd Eskew, also known as Najee Ali, detail his attempted blackmail of her using photos and videos she claims were taken without her consent or knowledge. The text messages were sent earlier this year after she ended their four-year affair.
Screenshots of text messages from Najee Ali to the woman show him admitting to having an extramarital affair with her.
“Don’t come near you??? You didn’t say that last week when you picked me up from simply wholesome and sucked my cock In back of your truck I knew you was a hoe. And you kept fucking me and kept telling me you didn’t have a boyfriend he was moving out. I see you have no integrity or character..”
Ali, who works for the Leimert Park based non-profit organization Community Build, Inc., has been married to Felicia Banks-Ali for the past seven years.
The text messages were made public after the doctor filed for and was granted a temporary domestic violence restraining order against Ali in Los Angeles Superior Court.
In her declaration she wrote, “I was involved in a relationship with Mr. Ali from approximately 2019 until 2023. On or about January 4, 2023, I ended my relationship with Mr. Ali via text (See Attachment A for copy of text messages). Mr. Ali became very agitated and aggressive after I ended the relationship and sent me a series of threatening messages, including sexually explicit pictures and a video of myself, which were taken without my knowledge or consent. In two of the photos, I am sleep. I have never seen these pictures or video before. Additionally, Mr. Ali texted that I am a whore, he hoped I would die, and that my parents would be ashamed. He also began calling and texting my boyfriend incessantly. Moreover, he sent my boyfriend the above referenced pictures and videos. He, again, attempted to provoke my boyfriend into a physical altercation.”
In one text message Ali tells his victim that he never deleted pictures and videos of her from his phone and that has sent them to her boyfriend.
“I’m pretty confident Dr [victim’s name] you do NOT want the police or anyone else looking at these messages, videos and pictures you willingly engaged in with me… now you STOP texting me, calling me and I hope you die so I don’t have to hear from you ever again.. you a cheating whore..”
Ali includes the photos he took in the text message. The photos show the woman asleep in the bed. One photo shows Ali taking a selfie with the sleeping woman in the background in the bed.
CA Civil Code Section 1708.8 makes it illegal to capture photos, videos or audio recordings of people “engaging in a private, personal or familial activity.”
“You should talk to him now and let him know the truth you been fucking him and me for years.. and you sucked my cock last week. Before he checks his email and sees the video proof. Come clean now to him.”
It is also illegal to electronically share sexual images of a person, taken without their knowledge or consent.
Ali told his victim in another text that he did, in fact, email her boyfriend.
“Ps..you should probably explain this to [victim’s boyfriend’s name]. I emailed him. Now stop texting me.”
In another text message, Ali tells his victim she’s a “cheating whore” who should just accept it and move on.
“…see you in a few months when you calm down and show me the respect I deserve.”
Crickets from civic leaders and news media on attacks on Black women by Ali
While Najee Ali referred to his victim as a “hoe,” “whore,” and “cheating whore” repeatedly via text, he is known for using the media to make a name for himself by being critical of men accused of hurting Black women.
After Bill Cosby was convicted, Ali told the media, “Cosby to Black America is an icon, but once an icon figure betrays the trust of the community, we have to withdraw our support and condemn their actions.”
Ali’s victim told the court that, “Mr. Ali baseline nature is hostility and aggression. He is too easily provoked. He can be calm and then becomes enraged in seconds. During our first sexual encounter, he choked me so hard, I could not breathe.”
As previously detailed, Ali texted his victim, “If you felt threatened by me you didn’t act like it last week you picked me up at Simply wholesome We got it the back seat and you sucked my cock until I cummed in your mouth as usual .. you need to call a mental health doctor because you truly are crazy and also the ugliest woman i have ever fucked … you look old , black and aging poorly. I guess that’s why you have no kid’s. Anyway STOP TEXTING ME — — — — — — — — — — — .. go be someone’s else bitch .. I’m done fucking you know. You are dismissed.”
While Ali’s own text messages confirm his affair, that didn’t stop him from taking to social media over the past month to campaign against a local pastor going through a divorce, claiming the pastor had an affair.
Since the news broke about the latest woman to file for and be granted a restraining order against Ali for harassment and intimidation, his supporters have remained silent.
There’s been no comment from Community Build, Inc. CEO Robert Saucedo, Dakota Communications Managing Partner Kerman Maddox (who President Joe Biden recently appointed to the Advisory Committee for Trade Policy and Negotiations), his wife Capri Maddox, Executive Director of the LA Civil + Human Rights and Equity, John Hope Bryant, Founder, Chairman and CEO at Operation HOPE, or any of the numerous local elected officials he’s often seen standing by and in photos with.
In a Los Angeles Times feature on Ali, Kerman Maddox was quoted as a longtime friend of Ali’s.
“He’s an old-school, in-your-face activist. He’s not intimidated by politicians. In that regard, you have to respect the guy.”
Ali is also a longtime associate of L.A. Mayor Karen Bass. Bass even attended Ali’s welcome home from prison party in Leimert Park at the former Lucy Florence Coffeehouse and most recently, Ali was seen frequently on the campaign trail with her as she ran for mayor. Bass wrote the forward to Ali’s self-published autobiography “Raising Hell — A Life of Activism.”
The Our Weekly Newspaper listed President Barack Obama, Rev. Al Sharpton, Martin Luther King III, Dick Gregory, Michael Jackson, Tavis Smiley, and Imam W.D. Mohammed as just some of the national figures Ali was associated with.
In 2017, Ali was ousted from Sharpton’s National Action Network (NAN) as their Los Angeles Chapter’s political director after his current wife, came forward about being physically abused by him. In the wake of the allegations, NAN cut all ties with him.
Similarly, Smiley did the same after Ali told the Electronic Urban Report, “Smiley is just the latest sexual terrorist that the #Metoo campaign has taken down and brought to justice…This is the nail in the coffin for Smiley. Black women are rising up and refusing to be silenced.”
But the local media has also been quiet.
Ali is a regular fixture on local television news, and in the Los Angeles Times, and Wave Newspaper as the voice of Black people.
Even though nearly 300,000 articulate, knowledgeable, and opinionated Black people live in Los Angeles County, Ali continues to represent the voice of Black people for the Los Angeles Times.
When contacted in 2021 about why Ali continues to be used as a source for the Los Angeles Times despite his documented aggression towards women and his three arrests for rape, columnist Erika Smith acknowledged knowing about his background. She said that she and her colleagues keep that in mind.
Ali has been quoted or featured in The Los Angeles Times at least 20 times since Smith sent that reply, giving him millions of dollars worth of publicity.
Ironically, he was most recently featured in an article in the Los Angeles Times about violence against Black women.
Even though Ali has made homophobic remarks in the past about the LGBTQ community, the Los Angeles Times still quoted him in an article on the life and death of Black gay icon Archbishop Carl Bean.
His History of Violence and Aggression Towards Black Women is Long and Well Documented
Convicted of multiple felonies, Najee Ali’s most recent stint in prison came after he was found guilty in 2008 of trying to tamper with a witness outside of his daughter’s preliminary hearing. For that, he received four years. Jasmin Eskew, Najee’s daughter, was awaiting trial on two counts of assault with a deadly weapon and one count of leaving the scene of an accident stemming from an incident in July 2007 involving her vehicle and a group of motorcyclists on the San Bernardino Freeway.
As the Los Angeles Times reported back then, “Ali would have received two years in prison, but a prior robbery conviction in 1992 doubled his time to four years, Sandi Gibbons, spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office said. The judge also found that Ali had violated his probation in a 2004 case in which he was convicted of felony hit-and-run after leaving the scene of an accident while he was on bail for another charge of purchasing false documents to be able to get two driver’s licenses from the Department of Motor Vehicles.
Ali has been arrested for rape three times.
Ali has had a number of requests for restraining orders filed against him dating back as far as 1988.
In 2006, Congresswoman Maxine Waters was granted a restraining order against Ali.
She told the Los Angeles Times that he had confronted her on several occasions, and she believed he was attempting to set her up. The restraining order also stated that Ali threatened to get her someday.
In court files, she said Ali is “attempting to create a situation that will appear to be harassment in order to sue me. He will stalk me. I’m very public.”
Before she passed away, Laura Hendricks, a merchant in Leimert Park, had to get two restraining orders against Ali for intimidation and harassment.
In 2016, during a meeting of the Los Angeles Police Commission, Ali publicly threatened physical harm to Black Lives Matter leaders Dr. Melina Abdullah and Jasmine Abdullah (not related).
In a video of the incident, Ali can be seen calling Jasmine Abdullah a felon, referencing her 2017 conviction for attempted “lynching” which was later reduced to a misdemeanor.
Ali also went to Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullor’s house forcing her to take her child and flee for fear of their lives.
Recently Najee Ali has taken to social media to campaign against a local pastor going through a divorce. Ali claims the pastor had an affair. While the pastor has vehemently denied ever having an affair, Ali has admitted in text messages to having his own affair with the woman who was granted the temporary restraining order against him.
Violence Against Black Women
According to the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, Black women experience violence at a rate 2.5 times more than white women. Study shows domestic violence impacts Black women at higher rates than any other race or ethnicity.
Black women also experience significantly higher rates of psychological abuse — including humiliation, insults, name-calling, and coercive control — than do women overall.
Sexual violence affects Black women at high rates. More than 20 percent of Black women are raped during their lifetimes — a higher share than among women overall.
Black women face a particularly high risk of being killed at the hands of a man. A 2015 Violence Policy Center study finds that Black women were two and a half times more likely to be murdered by men than their White counterparts. More than nine in ten Black female victims knew their killers.
The next court date for Ali’s victim is scheduled for May 4 at 8:30 a.m. in Stanley Mosk Dept. — 94, where the judge will decide on whether or not to grant a permanent restraining order barring Ali from all contact with her for at least three years.
Based in Los Angeles, Jasmyne Cannick is a Gen X award-winning journalist and on-air contributor from SoCal. She writes and talks about the collisions at the intersection of politics, race, and social issues.
Disclaimers
If you or someone you know have been affected by domestic abuse, I encourage you to reach out:
The National Domestic Violence Hotline
http://thehotline.org
1–800–799-SAFE (7233)
I do not name alleged victims of domestic and sexual violence unless they identify themselves publicly.
To preserve accuracy, all text message quotations were published as originally written, including all grammar, spelling, and punctuation errors.
