Though working for the Congress might be daunting for some new staffers, for one aide it's nothing compared to being held hostage at gunpoint by a white supremacist.
Malcolm Friedman, the new Northern regional representative for Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.), and his wife Jill were kidnapped and held hostage at gun point in 1995. White supremacist Faron Lovelace broke into the Friedman household and demanded that Jill call her husband and tell him to come home from work. Upon his arrival, Malcolm was held hostage while his wife went to the couple's grocery store to grab money out of the cash registers. Once he had the money, Lovelace then forced the Friedmans to drive to Spokane, Wash., where they were dropped off at a restaurant. Lovelace took off in their car.
Law enforcement officials in Spokane County at first were skeptical of the ordeal that the Friedmans described stating that "we didn't know whether it was fabricated or it was real," but Stevens County's Sheriff Department believed them from the beginning.
Lovelace reportedly targeted the couple for having a Jewish-sounding last name despite the fact they are Episcopalians. The 15th-most-wanted man in America was arrested a year later near Priest Lake in northern Idaho for robbery and the murder of a fellow white supremacist. Lovelace is currently serving a life sentence in Idaho.
Malcolm Friedman, who earned his BA from the University of Washington, is the former mayor of Colville, Wash. and county commissioner for Stevens County, Wash.
