Santa Knew Purported Victim : Investigation: Daniel Hobbit has a history of being in publicized events. Police are looking into the possibility that robbery attempt was staged.

By JULIE TAMAKI

Dec. 12, 1992 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

A shopping mall Santa praised as a hero and the woman he purportedly saved from robbers in a parking lot were acquaintances before the incident, they both have confirmed, and he has a history of involvement in highly publicized events.

Los Angeles police are investigating the incident as an attempted robbery but also plan to look into the possibility that it was staged, Detective Bobby Leon said Friday.

“They say it’s not a false report, but I will look into other information that the Police Department has received regarding this case, which insinuates that what occurred may have been a staged event,” Leon said.

“My previous experience with this individual is that he wants to be a grandstander,” said Sgt. Dennis Zine, describing a previous police experience with the Santa, Daniel Hobbit, 40. “He wanted to use governmental agencies to promote his interests.”

Hobbit was credited Wednesday with rescuing Gloria Margolis, 36, of Granada Hills from a man who demanded her keys as she was getting into her car in the parking lot of the Granada Village Shopping Center. In an interview following the incident, Margolis said the man threatened to “cut” her if she didn’t hand over her keys.

Margolis said she screamed for help and was rescued by Hobbit, a volunteer Santa Claus at the center. Hobbit raced 100 yards to her side and frightened the assailant, who fled the parking lot with an accomplice in a waiting car, she said.

Los Angeles Police Sgt. Dennis Feeley said that according to a police report there were no witnesses to the incident and police were unaware that Margolis and Hobbit knew each other.

Leon said he plans to re-interview Hobbit and Margolis about the incident.

Hobbit said in an interview that the event was not staged and that he was unaware the woman was Margolis until after the rescue. Margolis said she did not know her rescuer was Hobbit--who was wearing a fake Santa beard--until a reporter told her his name shortly after the incident. Margolis posed for news photos with her head on Hobbit’s shoulder at the time.

“This was not a joke,” Hobbit said. “It was a wonderful coincidence that happened when I heard this woman yelling out in the parking lot.”

Since the incident, Hobbit and Margolis have been featured in a brief segment of the ABC morning program, “The Home Show,” and were also guests on Rick Dees’ show on radio station KIIS, where Hobbit was awarded $500. He immediately donated the money to charity, said spokeswomen for the television network and radio station.

When asked Thursday, both Hobbit and Margolis said they knew each other prior to the incident, but gave different accounts of where they had met.

Hobbit said he met Margolis at a charity benefit they had worked on together at the Granada Village Shopping Center about six months ago. When asked whether he had met Margolis when he was previously employed at a Northridge video store, Hobbit said he knew she had been a customer at the store.

Margolis said she “vaguely” knew Hobbit and that she met him as a customer at the video store. She said she had not met him anywhere else. When asked if she had worked with Hobbit on the charity event Hobbit described, she said she had.

“A lot of strange things happen in this world. It’s a small world. . . . It just so happens the way it turned out,” Margolis said.

Hobbit is no stranger to publicity.

He made his debut as a heroic Santa on Dec. 12, 1989, when, in a widely reported incident at Panorama Mall, he said he performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation on an 11-year-old boy who was choking on chewing gum.

The LAPD’s Devonshire Division and Assemblywoman Paula L. Boland (R-Granada Hills) boycotted a stunt show Hobbit organized in February as assistant manager of the Video Super Shop in Northridge, which was billed as a tribute to Los Angeles police.

Police officials refused to take part in the show staged in a mini-mall parking lot after learning that it was tied to a promotion subsidized by Universal Studios for its 1991 gangster movie “Mobsters.”

At the time of the controversy, police officials called the event a blatant attempt to hype the movie and Hobbit’s store.

“This is a sham,” Zine said just prior to the event. “He was trying to embarrass us by linking us to this mobster theme. We don’t need that kind of recognition.”

Hobbit also made headlines when he sued a Hollywood production company for $100,000 last year, contending the company damaged a videotape that captured what he said was a ghost.

After taping what court documents referred to as a “black articulating mass” at a Moorpark house, Hobbit entered into a contract with Associated Entertainment Releasing Inc., allowing the company to use the tape and clips from his other ghost-hunting expeditions in a 1989 television special, “In Search of Haunted Hollywood.”

When the lawsuit was filed in June, an Associated employee who asked not to be identified said: “It’s just ludicrous. He’s just trying to stir up publicity.”

In an interview Friday, Hobbit said he won the suit. An attorney for Associated could not be reached for comment Friday.