Don't Give Up- Even when the FBI comes to get you!
Rays of Light and Strength for the Hardest Times
By - Rabbi Leib Pinter
Bad news is a challenge.
It can be overwhelming - or it can point the way to growth and strength. This powerful and insightful book is important for everyone - for who has not seen or experienced pain, suffering, tragedy? The author, Rabbi Leib Pinter, is a noted scholar and a man with great sensitivity and experience. He has known, consulted, and read the works of many of the greatest rabbis and spiritual guides of the last two generations - and distilled a wealth of wisdom into a book that provides guidance, hope, and optimism in the face of adversity. Don't Give Up is filled with fascinating stories and anecdotes, sayings and interpretations of the Sages and leaders through the centuries, as well as talks given to communities that were straining to cope with crisis, by contemporary luminaries such as Rabbi Mattisyahu Salomon. Profound, interesting and informative, t....
Available at artscroll.com - Discount Code:UOJ
Don't Give Up
Rays of Light and Strength for the Hardest Times
By Rabbi Leib Pinter
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Binding: Hardcover / Pages: 420 / Dimensions: 6" x 9" / Weight: 1.80 LBS
Published: by ArtScroll / Mesorah
Two Former Principals of Olympia Mortgage Indicted on Conspiracy, Wire Fraud and Bank Fraud Charges
May 8, 2008 - 11:28 AM US/Eastern
NEW YORK, May 8 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Leib Pinter and Barry Goldstein, two former principals of Olympia Mortgage Corporation, a Brooklyn, N.Y., based mortgage lender, were indicted with conspiracy, wire fraud and bank fraud, Benton J. Campbell, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, and Mark J. Mershon, Assistant Director-in-Charge of the FBI, New York Field Division, announced today.
The defendants' initial appearances and arraignments are scheduled later today before U.S. Magistrate Judge Joan M. Azrack at the U.S. Courthouse in Brooklyn. The case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Nina Gershon.
The indictment charges two fraudulent schemes. In the first, Pinter is charged with fraud in connection with the theft of $44 million of payoff proceeds for refinanced mortgage loans funded by Fannie Mae, a federally chartered mortgage lending company, and serviced by Olympia (the "Fannie Mae Fraud"). In the second, Goldstein is charged with fraud in connection with Olympia's sale of a portfolio of non-performing mortgage loans to Credit Suisse First Boston (CSFB) using falsified loan histories (the "CSFB Fraud").
According to the indictment, Olympia originated and serviced mortgage loans owned by Fannie Mae, and some of those loans were refinanced through Olympia. When Olympia refinanced a Fannie Mae mortgage loan, Fannie Mae wired the money to an Olympia account. Olympia was then required to pay off the underlying mortgage loan by remitting the outstanding balance to Fannie Mae. Instead, Pinter allegedly misappropriated the proceeds of the refinanced mortgage loan for the benefit of Olympia. When the fraudulent scheme was revealed, Fannie Mae held nearly $44 million in unpaid, but refinanced, underlying mortgage loans from Olympia.
The indictment alleges that Olympia also sold loans to investors, including CSFB, now doing business as Credit Suisse. Prior to purchasing a loan, CSFB required Olympia to produce, among other things, a loan history detailing what payments homeowners made and whether those payments were made on time. Olympia owned several loans for which payments had not been made in a timely manner. In an effort to induce CSFB to purchase these non-performing loans, Goldstein directed Olympia employees to alter delinquent loan histories to reflect that all payments were made in a timely manner. CSFB purchased 12 loans whose histories had been fraudulently altered in this manner.
"Investigating and prosecuting mortgage-related fraud is a priority of the Department of Justice and this office," said U.S. Attorney Campbell. "Those who enrich themselves at the expense of mortgage lenders are on notice that such crimes will not be tolerated."
FBI Assistant Director-in-Charge Mershon said, "Commercial banks and government loan guarantors assume some risk in assessing mortgage loans. But deliberate misrepresentation by unscrupulous mortgage brokers, lenders or appraisers can trump even determined due diligence. The FBI and the U.S. Attorney are committing more resources than ever to policing the mortgage lending arena."
If convicted of either the conspiracy to commit wire fraud or wire fraud counts, Pinter faces a maximum prison sentence of 30 years. If convicted of either the conspiracy to commit bank fraud or bank fraud counts, Goldstein faces a maximum prison sentence of 30 years.
The government's case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Jonathan E. Green and Daniel A. Spector.
SOURCE U.S. Department of Justice
Pinter's infamy precedes him but who the hell is Barry Goldstein?
ReplyDeleteThe Kanoi Hador
ReplyDeleteIt seems that the kanoim, amongst their other middos, are quite humble. They are content to stay in the background, and not take any credit for the great work that they do. Well, I think its time that these unsung heroes have the spotlight shone on them !
Many of my readers have also expressed an interest in the Kanoim. Who are they and how do they operate ? What motivates them ? Are they really all criminals ? (Of course not, only some of them are !) Well, here are some facts that I have pieced together so far. Most of it has been verified, I use the word 'apparently' where I am not so sure.
The Kanoim
One of the chief kanoim is Yaakov Kalmanowitz. He, together with Leib Pinter, were the brains behind the campaign to get the ban signed. Yaakov was recruited by his brother Osher in New York (from the Mir), who didn't want to be involved personally, for image reasons. They also roped in Michael Lyons and some other chevrah in Bnei Brak, its not clear how. Its also not clear who initially kicked the whole thing off.
Pinter, who lives in Brooklyn, is a well known kanoi who apparently really didn't like the banned books. He might be going away soon for a little trip, so we wish him well. This will not be his first trip, if you know what I mean. If you would like to support Pinter, he has a book published by Artscroll. He's also friendly with Leib Tropper, who has a yeshivah in Monsey, and was the source of the 'off bochrim' story.
Pinter and / or Kalmanowitz recruited Reuven Shmeltzer of Monsey to do the dirty work for them (faxes, phone calls etc), and spread all those stories. Reuven was overheard at a mechanech convention yelling into his cellphone 'I am being lochem milchemes hashem against Slifkin !' This was Shmeltzer's first kanoi job so I think he deserves a round of applause for being so effective. Great job Reuven ! Now you can graduate to breaking people's legs with baseball bats.
Their Motives
I think Shmeltzer is some kind of kanoi-in-training. Pinter just sounds rather messed up if you ask me. I heard conflicting reports about Tropper so I don't know what he's about. I did find out some more about Kalmanowitz though. In the words of one of my commentators (and I also verified this independently):
He's the one who is most responsible for this entire fiasco (the Slifkin ban). He is a full time kanoi, frustrated beyond words, who has killed many a Jew. His name is Yaakov Mordechai Kalmanowitz, more commonly known as Yankel or black-jack kalmanowitz. Unfortunately he is not gainfully employed and has zero scruples so he's tough to fight with. Nonetheless, the more he's exposed - as any good bully - he'll back off. He lives in Israel but comes to the States to stir trouble at any given opportunity.
I hear that he is trying to ban another book - the "Mishnas R' Aharon" vol IV. There's a letter there that does not give a positive picture of his grandfather - coming from the brisker rav. I heard that the book is being recalled to have his grandfather's name blotted out.
I found a couple of Black Jack's shiurim available on the web.They are called 'Secular Thinking' and 'Secular Thinking 2', about half way down the page. They sound like the titles of some awful 'B' movie and its even awfuller sequel. Well, they are more awful than that.
Warning: About half way through the first shiur he is jabbering on about gray market goods and squeals like a pig for about 5 seconds. Don't have the volume set too high, it will be painful !
In the first shiur, he divides the entire world of thinking into two categories: Toyrudick Thinking and Secular Thinking (chas vesholom). Secular thinking is of course entirely treif. He doesn't really explain what Secular thinking is, except to say that its based on visible facts, and nothing more. I guess anything he personally doesn't agree with would be termed Secular Thinking.
But wait, there's more ! If you have an ounce of 'minus' in you he says, then even your Toyruh thoughts are completely invalidated. He brings a nice moshol from a kallah. Everyone is praising the kallah, saying how beautiful she is, how perfect she is etc. However, there is just one minor problem, she is very, very, slightly pregnant ! (Laughter from the audience). Likewise, if someone has a drop of 'minus' in him, that invalidates his Toyruh too. So the world is clearly divided into two groups of people: Those with pure Toyrudick thoughts, and everyone else who is completely treif.
In his second 'shiur' he is all upset about some pamphlet from some school or yeshivah, hard to say what exactly. He keeps saying how he can't even bring himself to say over whats in the pamphlet, its so bad. He didn't seem to have much else to say. He also tells over a story about an Odom Godol who once read a secular book as a child and then spent the rest of his life trying to do teshuvah and fighting against Secular Thinking.
So it seems that Black-Jack has a particular vendetta against 'Secular Thinking'. I guess that would make him the ideal kanoi to fight against Slifkin. Who knows, maybe the Odom Godol he refers to is really himself ?
Ideally, it might be possible to have someone so pure, and so innocent, and so holy, that maybe they should not have contact with 'secular' culture or thinking. I can imagine that. Somehow, I really doubt that Black Jack is that person, or anywhere close. However, apparently, Rav Moshe Shapiro likes him a lot, so who am I to judge ?
Mortgage Lender Sued, Pocketed $44 Million
ReplyDeletePosted by The North Phoenix Agent on May 8, 2008
From Inman News, here’s an excerpt from an article they ran today about a mortgage lender getting sued for shenanigans.
Leib Pinter, 64, is accused of fraud in connection with the alleged theft of $44 million in proceeds from refinance loans funded by Fannie Mae.
According to an indictment filed by the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, Pinter’s company Olympia Mortgage Corp originated and serviced mortgage loans owned by Fannie Mae. Some of those loans were refinanced through Olympia, with Fannie Mae wiring money to an Olympia account.
Instead of paying off the underlying mortgage loan by remitting the outstanding balance to Fannie Mae, Pinter is accused of pocketing the proceeds. By the time the scheme was discovered, Fannie Mae held nearly $44 million in unpaid, but refinanced, mortgage loans from Olympia, prosecutors said.
Yikes! Maybe in addition to a terrorist watch list, we need a lender fraud watchlist. It might help solve the problem we seem to be having, where most folks want to help homeowners who got duped into a loan they couldn’t afford, but nobody wants to help guys like Pinter and homeowners who knowingly took out a mortgage they couldn’t afford.
by Rabbi Leib Pinter
ReplyDeleteExcerpted with permission from "DON'T GIVE UP." Published by ArtScroll/Mesorah Publications Ltd.
[Note: The following story is about a woman named Rachel whose husband had died young, leaving her to care for their seven children. She was distraught and depressed, feeling as though she had been dealt a bad hand in life. The story appears in the 17th century writings of Rabbi Chaim Vital, who heard it from the famous kabbalist, the Arizal.]
One night, as she was lying in bed, she began to ponder the fact that she was not alone in her plight; there were many women who had been widowed at a relatively young age. They had accepted their bitter lot and were happy. With thoughts such as these, she drifted into a sweet slumber and soon began to dream.
In her dream, she saw people running, and she began to run as well. She ran and ran until she left the city and found herself in a dark forest. She continued running when suddenly, shafts of brilliant sunlight began illuminating everything around her.
Ahead of her, she saw a large garden, full of beautiful flowers that gave off a heavenly scent and gentle brooks of water bubbling merrily all around. Then she beheld an elderly Jew dressed in a flowing white robe. He asked her if she wanted to see her husband. Her heart beating wildly, she answered in the affirmative and began following him. After a few moments, he stopped beside a giant tree that was full of beautiful blossoms. In the distance, she saw a manicured lawn, surrounded by a fence made of pure gold. In the middle of the lawn, a group of Jews dressed in colorful clothing sat around a table studying Torah. At the head sat a young man who was teaching them. The old man said to Rachel, "The class will finish in a moment, and then you can see him." She looked all around her and could barely believe her eyes.
The class finished and the teacher began walking away. All of a sudden, Rachel recognized him! "Avraham!" she called out, and leaned weakly against the tree next to her. "Yes, it's me," replied her husband. The moment stretched out, and when she collected her senses Rachel asked, "Why did you leave me at such a young age?"
Avraham answered gently, "Know, my precious wife, that the world in which you live is a barren land, where people are sent either to conclude certain matters, or to [rectify mistakes] that they committed previously. The True World is the one I am in now.
"Before the lifetime in which I was married to you, I had already lived in the world. At that time, I was an outstanding Torah scholar, and well known for my piety and righteousness. I never married, because I didn't want to be interrupted from my studies. When I passed away, I was given permission to establish a yeshiva in Heaven. I began to ascend there, but when I rose to the highest level, and they found that I had never married and had children, I was sent back to the world to complete these tasks. I married you, and after our seventh child was born, I was called to return to my yeshiva in Heaven, where everyone was waiting for me.
"I want you to know that it was a tremendous merit for you to have been married to me, for I am accorded much honor here, and eventually, we will be reunited and live here as one, in great joy and happiness."
Rachel listened wide-eyed to all this, and when he finished speaking, she exclaimed, "I had no idea you were such a great scholar. The whole time we were together, you never had any time to study Torah!"
Avraham replied, "Believe me, I didn't know either. Everything was concealed from me, and my sole purpose in being reincarnated was to fill one lack, by raising and supporting my children in a respectable fashion. When I left the world, my head was suddenly overflowing with Torah."
Rachel then asked, "Why isn't our son Yosef successful in his business endeavors?" Her husband answered, "I'm sure you recall that a few years ago, Yosef was involved in a court case with another man. Even though he won, it caused pain to another person. Because of this, Heaven wanted to give him a severe punishment. I spoke up on his behalf, and requested that he only be subjected to four years of difficulty in making a living. In one more year, this period will end, and he will begin to have success."
Rachel then queried, "And what of our David, who is 24 years old and still unmarried? And even if he became engaged, there is no money to marry him off."
At that, Avraham smiled and said, "The reason he can't find anyone is because his mate came into the world later than he did. Right now, she is only 13 years old, and she lives in a different country that he does. In five years, she will come to your city, marry him and pay for all of the wedding expenses!"
Rachel then began shaking, as a painful memory rose to the surface of her mind. In a trembling voice, she asked, "And why was it decreed that our 3-year-old son die such a painful death, killed by a drunk?"
Her husband answered, "Follow me!" In a short time, they came to another garden, more spectacular than the last. A radiant, shimmering light shone on everything, and birds flitted all around...
Rachel fainted from the wonder of it all, and her husband passed some fragrant herbs under her nose to revive her.
In front of her, she saw a wedding canopy built of precious stones that glittered spectacularly with all the colors of the rainbow. Underneath it stood an angelic figure whom she recognized as her beloved son. Overcome with joy, she fainted again. When she came to, she saw that her imagination hadn't been fooling her - her precious son was standing before her. With tears in her eyes, she asked him, "Why did you leave me at such a tender age?"
The boy answered, "Everything is done according to the will of the Almighty. Before I was born to you, Mommy, I had already lived in a previous lifetime. In that life, I was born to a respectable Jewish family. When I was but half a year old there was a pogrom in our village, and all the Jews were slaughtered except for me. A gentile woman had mercy on me and took me to her home. She raised me as her own child for three years, and even provided me with a nursemaid for the entire time. Eventually, some Jewish people found out about my situation and managed to redeem me. My fortunes changed from that point on, and I lived a life of tranquility. Moreover, I became an outstanding Torah scholar, known far and wide for my righteousness and intellectual acuity.
"When I passed away, I was received in Heaven with great honor. Like Father, I ascended higher and higher, until I reached a level where I was not allowed to rise further. The reason was because of the time I had spent [eating non-kosher food]. However, I could rectify this blemish by coming back down to the world for few years. That is why I was born to you, and that is why I left you at such a young age. When I was three years old and the blemish was gone, I could finally ascend to the highest of heights, my purpose on the earth having been fulfilled. Know, Mommy, that my having been born to you was a great source of merit for you."
Rachel was still not completely satisfied, and she asked, "But why were you taken away in such a violent fashion?"
Her son answered, "When it was my time, a terrible decree hung over the Jewish community of our city, wherein everyone was going to die. My soul was offered the honor of atoning for everyone with my death, and accepted. Because of this, I merited the great honor given to me here..."
With that, the boy began to laugh joyfully and faded from view before Rachel's incredulous eyes.
Rachel's husband then turned to her and said, "You see that all of your questions have answers. Everything that the Almighty does is good! And now I have to return to my students." He then led her back to the tree where she first saw him and said tenderly, "It is very good for me here, my precious wife, but I can't bear your sighs and tears. Don't mourn for me anymore, Rachel! If you will become happy again, you will meet another husband, a good man who will take care of you!"
Avraham then mysteriously disappeared from her view. Suddenly the old man was before her once again, and he escorted her out of the forest. Exactly when she reached the outer edge, she woke up with a start. She was full of joy and felt as if she had been reborn. For the first time in as long as she could remember, a smile of complete happiness lit her face. As she recalled the wondrous dream, the smile grew even wider, and a huge weight was lifted from her heart. Finally, she had been consoled. In a short while, she remarried and lived out her days in happiness and tranquility.
Every single thing in the Creation is like an individual part in a great machine, with the Almighty constantly removing old parts and replacing them with different ones. Each thing works in accordance with a master plan and plays its own unique function. G-d sends different souls down to the world, all with their own special tasks. When a particular soul's job is done, it is recalled to the Upper Worlds.
This World and the Next are intimately connected, both working toward the same goal. In This World the soul works together with a body, and in the Next World, it works alone. If we knew the secret of how everything worked, nothing would disturb us.
As soon as they heard the story, Feldheim publishers immediately nixed plans to issue the next printing of Dovid Goldwasser's book and asked a shayla if they have to recall the volumes already distributed.
ReplyDeleteHow I am going to save face now? Just when I thought things couldn't get worse, I find out that the principal of my daughters at Masores Bais Yaakov is the wife of Energizer-Ganev Leib Pinter!
ReplyDeleteReb Matt Salomon jumped in head first to bail the Pinters out of one major scandal. Gradda, that may have been the only scandal of many that the Pinters did not pre-meditate.
ReplyDeletePinter may be the biggest goniff of them all, but he is not a Mirrer. The slimy opportunist lived around the corner from the Mir for 30 years without stepping foot in the place. Then when he had an eye on making his son Moishy the 9th grade rebbe, he became Mr. 24/7 Mir and gave them big bucks. Do you have any idea how many Mirrers feel like vomiting every time Pinter walks in and defiles the yeshiva hakedoshah? At least thanks to pressure from UOJ, we got his desk out of the office.
ReplyDeleteA rov, who is ashamed that the Goldwasser story is making the rounds as a publicized chilul Hashem, has reached to both Goldwasser & the Lubabs to amicably haul Goldwasser's rear end before a beis din.
ReplyDeleteI wish the yeshiva would recall the dinner journal with that ad vos hot a din fun maychazee keshikra. The Pinter family wrote that Moishie is following in the derech Hatorah of his father Leib and so on.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.wnbc.com/news/16202399/detail.html
ReplyDeleteThe alleged frauds happened from 1994 until late 2004 - when Olympia gave up its license to act as a mortgage lender in New York, prosecutors said.
The indictment accuses Pinter, 64 of swindling proceeds from 257 refinanced mortgage loans that Olympia was servicing for Fannie Mae.
"Those who enrich themselves at the expense of mortgage lenders are on notice that such crimes will not be tolerated," said Brooklyn US Attorney Benton Campbell.
FBI Assistant Director-in-Charge Mershon said, "Commercial banks and government loan guarantors assume some risk in assessing mortgage loans. But deliberate misrepresentation by unscrupulous mortgage brokers, lenders or appraisers can trump even determined due diligence."
You can expect to see more charges. Pinter, his family and associates have already been named by the Feds in civil complaints to the tune of over $100 million.
ReplyDeleteWhat loathsome people.
http://www.5tjt.com/news/read.asp?Id=2388
ReplyDeleteRecognizing the growing population of children in Far Rockaway, a number of community leaders determined that there was inadequate recreational facilities in the vicinity. Lanett playground was identified as a community asset but in great need of updating and repair.
The Parks Department projected the expense for such a project to be around $2.2 million. Through ongoing lobbying with city agencies, advocacy groups and elected officials, a commitment of $650,000 from councilman James Sanders as well as a design grant from NYers for Parks was secured in early 2007 as well as an administrative grant from Assemblywoman Audrey Pheffer. A state grant of $500,000 was given in late 2007. And now I am pleased to report that I have been informed that Queens Borough President Helen Marshall has allocated $1.2 million for the project. This gives us a grand total of more than $2.3 million. Currently, Boomie Pinter, president of the West Lawrence Civic association, is working on coordinating all parties involved in the project to ensure a seamless execution of the park redesign.
http://www.newsday.com/services/newspaper/printedition/friday/news/ny-nymort095679628may09,0,4156261.story
ReplyDeleteThe charges are the first brought by a new mortgage fraud unit in the eastern district U.S. attorney's office in Brooklyn.
I heard that Leib's wife, Shaindy Pinter, is a tough principal at Masores and at least some teachers are scared of her.
ReplyDeleteFor all those who know the real deal, Eckstein must be jumping for joy!
ReplyDeleteThis as*hole Pinter, tried to have Rav Shmuel Birnbaum Z"L get a new driver and not get into his car again.
If I may add, the others who were part of this terroristic Nazi gang were Josh Mehlman (Travelcell, Mark Soltan (Sasregen lowlife), Abe Schwartzman (notorious gangster), Eli Shindler (aka, Mr. "Twitch Twitch"), and Moshe Williger (Flatbush Hatzulah coordinator).
Their days of mafi-style tactics are coming to an end. Each one will be taken down. One by one.
For starters, how is it that UOJ did not publicize the story of the world-famous ganav Mr. Williger from Lakewood ir hatorah (brother of Moshe Williger), when he got arrested 6 weeks ago in Flatbush?
get this folks: He was arrested for atempted K-I-D-N-A-P-P-I-N-G.
That's correct. You heard right.
He atempted to kidnapp Mr. Avrumy Eisenreich's wife and kids and hold them for randsom. Seems like the two schvartzas he hired to do the job ratted him out to the cops.
Each one of these bastards will met their end in public shame.
For starters, how is it that UOJ did not publicize the story of the world-famous ganav Mr. Williger from Lakewood ir hatorah (brother of Moshe Williger), when he got arrested 6 weeks ago in Flatbush?
ReplyDelete--------------------
Sheesh....This is only a part time job that does not pay very well. SORRY! IT WILL NEVER HAPPEN AGAIN!
Why were they out to get Eckstein? Because of that story in Hatzolah where he was trying to get accountability with the funny money?
ReplyDeleteWhat does Schwartzman have to do with Hatzolah? He was last seen peddling US flags.
Did Leiby Puretz stick up for Eckstein?
Is the Williger story in any newspaper?
The wording of the Justice Dept press release tells us that Credit Suisse was not the only bank that Pinter took for a ride. I wonder who the others are.
ReplyDeletePinter will be fine when he gets home before Shabbos.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.newsday.com/news/local/newyork/ny-nymort0509,0,2745742.story
Charged with conspiracy, wire and mail fraud in a four-count indictment unsealed in Brooklyn federal court were Leib Pinter,64, and Barry Goldstein, 59. Both men were identified in the indictment as principles of Olympia Mortgage Corp., which was on Coney Island Avenue until it closed in late 2004.
Magistrate-judge Joan Azrack released Pinter on an $800,000 bond secured by his home while Goldstein was released on a $350,000 bond, also secured by his residence.
Leib Pinter is an honorable mortgage banker.
ReplyDeleteLast weeks Mishpacha magazine was junk, this week they are on track with reality.
ReplyDeleteThe judge in the Pinter case is Joan Azrack.
ReplyDeleteIs she SY?
To mirrer mirrer on the wall
ReplyDeleteIf so many people want to vomit, how come Shimon Greisman with the instructions Asher Kalmanowitz the "rosh hayeshivah" gives him all the chosheva aliyos. Will he get the aseres hadibros this year also on shavous like last year? No-one says boo to that. How about his morning seder chavrusah Mordechai Shain he has no problem learning with him. How about the holy R Ely Brudny another rosh yeshiva there learns with him in Moshe Scheneirman's shul every night is that going to stop? What does Brudny mechutan Avrohom Donner have to say to all this. Hey Gershon Spiegel you couldn't win against this crook? If the "mirrer's" were so disgusted with him why does Avrohom Kunstlinger, Moshe Gordon from Marina del ray run over to give him good shabbos everyweek. I think just the opposite they are all jealous of his stealing and want to learn from him.
I can only speak for myself. I have complained about Pinter to the hanhala. Some rebbeim at least are too sheltered to realize the choymer of Pinter's rishus and the liability of having him around. In fact, they don't know the aleph beis about his thievery and brush it off as much ado about nothing and az altz iz geven far Tayreh. It's the same kind of temimuskeit that led one bochur from the yeshiva to ask his father the pirush of a poshutta word in the English language. Some rabbonim from other circles have been wondering out loud about the same thing.
ReplyDeleteFigures Pinter hangs around Scheinerman's shul too.
ReplyDeleteThey SHTINK!
"What does Brudny mechutan Avrohom Donner have to say to all this."
ReplyDeletePinter & Donner have been dear friends & business associates for decades.
that it explains it said
ReplyDeleteYou mean "former" dear friends and business partners. Donner lost millions because of Pinter. He hired Gershon Spiegel to be his toyon and paid thousands of dollars and according to what I hear lost the din torah. Donner hates Pinter now.
Uh ... I knew 5 years ago Pinter would be indicted!
ReplyDeleteUnless the beis din was corrupt, it's hard to see how anyone could lose a din Torah to the likes of Pinter. Maybe it's because as rumored, Donner was the front man for not-really-kosher deals. It would be his fault for doing something as stupid as helping Pinter circumvent the law.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if Pinter has anything to do with Margo's mortgages.
ReplyDeleteGee, I didn't expect to see the whole gang from Ave R & East 9th commenting here about our neighbor Pinter.
ReplyDeleteHey "Orch", don't even get me started on the mortgage for 555 Ocean Pkwy. Stick to cars.
ReplyDeleteThe SYs want Pinter out of our turf. Like I told UOJ here a couple of years ago, we should start throwing rotten babaganoush through his front window!
ReplyDeleteI heard Pinter was hired as official spokesman for that new video game, Grand THEFT Auto.
ReplyDeleteI think UOJ just has a bias against guys with red beards. I taught Pinter's boys in YTT.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.projectsafechildhood.gov/
ReplyDelete"Our nation has made this commitment: Anyone who targets a child for harm will be a primary target of law enforcement. That's our commitment. Anyone who takes the life or innocence of a child will be punished to the full extent of the law."
President George W. Bush
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/smart/guidelines.htm
ReplyDeleteProposed National Guidelines for Sex Offender Registration and Notification
Pinter drek was thrown off the Mir board which just got a new member Moshe Tolansky! (they replaced one goniff with another)
ReplyDeleteAlso TravelCell is really owned by Avrohom Fructandler the scum of Chiam Berlin, I am just a front for him!
There is a Moshe Tolansky who learned by Rav Soloveitchik, who is on the board of RIETS.
ReplyDelete"Uncle Milty" Balkany never had a client before who was jailed multiple times.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.usdoj.gov/usao/nye/pr/2008/2008may08.html
If convicted of either of the conspiracy to commit wire fraud or wire fraud counts, PINTER faces a maximum term of imprisonment of 30 years.
http://us.ft.com/ftgateway/superpage.ft?news_id=fto050820081926463098&page=2
ReplyDeleteOlympia serviced mortgages - which involves collecting payments - that were owned by Fannie Mae. According to the indictment, when Fannie Mae issued new mortgage loans - at lower interest rates through a refinancing programme at the agency - Mr Pinter kept proceeds instead of using them to pay off to Fannie the outstanding balance of the original loans.
Fannie Mae provided Olympia with more than $44m - the aggregate unpaid principal amount of 257 loans. Mr Pinter "used the proceeds to pay Olympia's operating expenses and enrich himself and others", the indictment claims. Mr Pinter also allegedly took a number of actions to prevent Fannie Mae from detecting the scheme.
Barry Bohrer, lawyer for Mr Pinter, said: "This matter has been the subject of extended litigation. Mr. Pinter looks forward to a just resolution of the matter."
http://www.magislaw.com/AttorneyBIO.aspx?ID=5
ReplyDeleteMorvillo Abramowitz Grand Iason Anello & Bohrer PC
565 Fifth Avenue
Barry A. Bohrer
Principal
(212) 880-9550
bbohrer@maglaw.com
Barry A. Bohrer has extensive experience in handling complex civil and white-collar criminal matters in state and federal court for individual and corporate clients. Mr. Bohrer has an active trial and appellate practice, which includes securities, commodities, environmental, and antitrust matters. He also conducts corporate internal investigations and counsels individuals involved in them.
Mr. Bohrer received a B.A. from Duke University and a J.D. from New York University School of Law. From 1982 to 1985, he was an Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, where he served as both Chief Appellate Attorney and chief of the Major Crimes Unit. He has held the position of Adjunct Associate Professor of Law at Fordham University School of Law, where he taught Trial Advocacy.
Mr. Bohrer is an author of the “White-Collar Crime” column in the New York Law Journal, and is on the Board of Editors of the White Collar Crime Reporter. Mr. Bohrer is an author of “Motion Denied: Systematic Impediments to White Collar Criminal Defendants’ Trial Preparation,” 42 Am. Crim. L. Rev. 157 (2005), “Checking the Balance: Prosecutorial Power in an Age of Expansive Legislation,” 32 Am. Crim. L. Rev. (1995), and the author of “Trademark Counterfeiting: Congress Creates Another Crime” (Business Crime, 1986). He is a co-author of the books Practice Under the New Federal Sentencing Guidelines (Prentice-Hall Law & Business, 1990) and Prevention and Prosecution of Computer and High Technology Crime (Matthew Bender, 1988).
Mr. Bohrer is a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers, Vice President of the New York Council of Defense Lawyers, and regional Vice-Chair of the White Collar Crime Committee of the ABA Litigation Section. He serves on the Board of Directors of the Legal Aid Society, and received awards in 2005 and 2006 for Outstanding Pro Bono Service for his advocacy. Mr. Bohrer is also a member of the New York City Bar Association (past member of the Criminal Law Committee) and the New York State and American Bar Associations (Criminal Justice and Litigation Sections).
Leib Pinter
ReplyDeleteConrad Black
Alex DiLorenzo (Happy Land social club in the Bronx where 87 people were murdered by arson)
Sam Israel ($400 million fraud at Bayou hedge fund)
Lou Guttman (former NYMEX Chairman involved in the sugar trading scam)
Jacques Le Magueresse (French Bastard from Manhattan who stole $360,000)
Jennifer Wilkov (ran a housing flip scam while at American Express)
Martin Boelens ($200 million ponzi scheme)
Former Congressman Robert Garcia (Wedtech scandal)
Ted Kohl (ran the bid rigging cartel in Manhattan that adds 20% to all construction costs)
Frank family (buried toxic waste containers in New York Harbor)
Harvey Cohen (exterminator who acted as a middleman in an extortion ring of corrupt NYC Health inspectors)
Walter Cedeno (major heroin trafficker)
http://ny.therealdeal.com/assets/34835
ReplyDeleteWhat does Pinter do with all the money he steals?
UOJ gloats over Pinter because he enjoys this bad news as much as pornography.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9941060-7.html
ReplyDeleteThe FBI announced Friday that an investigation into counterfeit network components made in China and sold to the U.S. government has recovered about 3,500 fake devices with a value of $3.5 million.
The criminal probe, code-named Operation Cisco Raider, was prompted by concerns that counterfeit network components could give hackers access to government databases. But one U.S. official told Reuters that the components discovered by the FBI are not believed to have made government computer systems more vulnerable.
The existence of the probe came to light after an unclassified FBI PowerPoint presentation in January on the agency's efforts to counter the production and distribution of counterfeit network hardware showed up on Abovetopsecret.com.
"This unclassified briefing was never intended for broad distribution or posting to the Internet," James Finch, assistant director of the FBI's Cyber Division, said in a statement.
Operation Cisco Raider involved 15 investigations at nine FBI field offices and the execution of 39 search warrants, the bureau said. The FBI release did not mention if any arrests had been made.
Components included pirated versions of Cisco Systems routers as well as switches, interface converters and wide area network interface cards, Reuters reported.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/10/nyregion/10fossella.html
ReplyDeleteIn the nine days since the 43-year-old Mr. Fossella, who has served five terms in Congress, was arrested and charged after running a red light in Alexandria, Va., things have gone from not-so-good to pretty bad, with only a slender thread still staving off the worst.
Within days of his admitting that he was on his way to visit “some friends in Virginia” when he was stopped by the police, the New York tabloids began raising questions about the woman who came to retrieve him from custody, a former Air Force lieutenant colonel named Laura Fay. Then, on Thursday, he released a clipped statement from his office, saying that he had fathered a daughter, now 3, in an extramarital affair with Ms. Fay.
It must have come as a bitter moment on Friday when The Staten Island Advance newspaper published an editorial scolding him for his affair and calling on him to resign.
I live at 10 Beechwood Dr in Lawrence.
ReplyDeleteI would give some of the stolen money at Olympia to the Joe Lieberman campaign.
http://www.housefront.com/PropertyDetail.aspx?propertyID=45236872
ReplyDelete10 Beechwood Dr
Hempstead (Lawrence), NY 11559
House Size 5614'
Lot Size 11326'
Bedrooms 12
Bathrooms 5
http://www.websupp.org/data/EDNY/1:04-cv-05331-41-EDNY.pdf
ReplyDeleteUNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
EASTERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK
---------------------------------------------------------X
CHINATRUST BANK (U.S.A.),
Plaintiff,
— against —
SAMUEL PINTER, FAGIE PINTER
and AVRUHUM M. DONNER,
Defendants.
---------------------------------------------------------X
TOWNES, United States District Judge
Chinatrust seeks payment of $5,532,822.72 plus interest, and reasonable attorney’s fees incurred
S. Pinter argues that Chinatrust’s
failure to identify the alleged forgery of the guaranty purportedly signed by Fagie Pinter in connection with the Credit Agreements and the Olympia Notes should immunize S. Pinter from
liability for Olympia’s debt.
Additionally, S. Pinter argues that Chinatrust’s motion should be denied because “Chinatrust comes before this Court with unclean hands.”
It is clear from the record that Olympia and Chinatrust entered into the Credit Agreements and Olympia Notes and that Defendants S. Pinter and Avruhum Donner duly executed personal guaranties in
connection with these agreements. Furthermore, Chinatrust has sufficiently established Olympia’s default under the Credit Agreements and the Olympia Notes and both Olympias’ and the Guarantors’ nonpayment of the outstanding debt owed to Chinatrust by Olympia.
S. Pinter does not present a scintilla of evidence to support a claim that Chinatrust was aware of the alleged forgery of Fagie Pinter’s signature. Such a contention is entirely unsupported by the record. Further, it should be noted that if anyone was better situated to have known of the alleged forgery, it was S. Pinter because Fagie Pinter was his wife and because co-defendant Donner testified that he had reason to believe that S. Pinter’s own brother committed the alleged forgery.
S. Pinter’s affirmative defense that the instant action is barred by the applicable statute of limitations is unpersuasive.
For the reasons set forth above, the Plaintiff’s motion for summary judgment is GRANTED in its entirety. Defendants Samuel Pinter and Avruhum M. Donner are liable jointly and severally to Chinatrust in the amount of $5,532,822.72.
If Plaintiff wishes to seek
attorney’s fees, Plaintiff must submit an application for attorney’s fees within thirty (30) days of the date of this Order. The Clerk of Court shall enter judgment in favor of Plaintiff and against Defendants Samuel Pinter and Avruhum M. Donner.
SO ORDERED.
Dated: Brooklyn, New York
March 23, 2007
SANDRA L. TOWNES
United States District Judge
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/11/business/11storage.html?ei=5087&em=&en=1aaaf842d3b93faa&ex=1210651200&pagewanted=print
ReplyDeleteMay 11, 2008
Losing a Home, Then Losing All Out of Storage
By DAVID STREITFELD
ELK GROVE VILLAGE, Ill. — The foreclosure crisis is hitting yet another American locale: the self-storage center.
As they lose their homes, people are turning to these humble cinderblock and sheet-metal boxes to store their stuff. But some people cannot keep up with their storage bills any better than they could handle their mortgage payments, and storage companies are auctioning off their property for a pittance.
A cottage industry has developed to profit from these lost and abandoned items. The other day in this Chicago suburb, Stephanie Donahou and her son Marcus had only a moment to decide whether to bid on a unit in default. They could see a couch, a sewing machine, a fish tank, a washer and dryer, lots of Christmas wrapping paper, a television and other trappings of daily life.
“This is someone’s house,” Mrs. Donahou said. Her bid, for $160, was the highest. Mr. Donahou was not impressed. “Ma, you bought a junker,” he said, rooting through the material. They began to fill their U-Haul. Good material they would auction on eBay; middling stuff would go to yard sales.
An estimated 9 million American households, or 10.3 percent of all single-family homes, owe more than their home is worth, according to Moody’s Economy.com.
ReplyDelete4.8 percent of home loans were in foreclosure or delinquent by 60 days or more at the end of last year, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.
A foreclosure can make it hard for borrowers to get other loans and sometimes even an apartment. Economists refer to these as “transaction costs” that offset the benefit borrowers might get from defaulting on an underwater home loan.
Lenders can also pursue deficiency judgments against borrowers to recoup the difference between what is owed on the debt and what the property is sold for after foreclosure. Such claims are time-consuming and expensive to win, so most lenders do not pursue them. In the past, some lenders have sought judgments against a few borrowers to deter others from walking away, said Grant S. Nelson, an emeritus law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.
“Inside Edition,” the celebrity-focused TV news program, reported that Jose Canseco, the former American League most valuable player who made millions during his baseball career, abandoned his $2.5 million mansion outside Los Angeles to move into a smaller property.
Even though the Bush administration on Friday said it would only support legislation that did not require taxpayer funds, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that the House-passed measure would refinance as many as 500,000 homes over the next five years, at a cost to taxpayers of about $2.7 billion.
ReplyDeleteThe measure now goes to the Senate, where it faces opposition among Republicans who have tapped into a broad wave of bailout resentment in states less affected by the crisis. And the failure of the House to adopt it by a veto-proof margin is likely to further embolden recalcitrant Republicans in the Senate who have so far managed to block action, Democratic supporters of the measure said on Friday.
Last month, Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, sharply pivoted and called for government aid to homeowners in danger of losing their homes.
His plan was more modest than the Democratic plan. But it was notable because, only a month earlier, he had warned against broad government intervention to solve the mortgage crisis, saying it was “not the duty of government to bail out and reward those who act irresponsibly, whether they are big banks or small borrowers.”
Democratic strategists said the change reflected the importance on the electoral map of states like Florida, Ohio and Michigan, all hit hard by the crisis.
http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/housing/2008-04-29-shiller-home-prices_N.htm?csp=34
ReplyDeleteForeclosures double, and home prices tumble
By Stephanie Armour, USA TODAY
The most severe real estate recession in decades appears far from over, with the pace of foreclosures rising, the fall in home prices accelerating and the pain spreading to nearly every major U.S. city, according to two reports issued Tuesday.
The number of homes entering foreclosure jumped more than 100% in the first three months of the year compared with the same quarter in 2007, with one in every 194 homes receiving a foreclosure filing, RealtyTrac reported. Foreclosure activity rose in 46 of the 50 states and in 90 of the 100 largest metro areas.
Home prices tumbled 12.7% in February compared with last year, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller composite index of 20 cities. All but one of the 20 cities — Charlotte — saw year-over-year price drops.
In coming months, more foreclosed homes for sale will likely put further pressure on prices. That's because banks that own those homes must slash prices, forcing home sellers to compete and squeezing sellers who already owe more than their homes are worth.
"This is creating a level of housing decline we've never seen before, and it's not over yet," says Joel Naroff of Naroff Economic Advisors. "This is probably the peak year for foreclosures. Every month, it's more angst. People are giving up and not making any payments at all. I wouldn't be surprised to see things deteriorate further."
A Moody's Economy.com report said the real estate market will continue to slump with home prices falling 10 percent to 25 percent until 2009.
ReplyDeleteTo come up with the forecast, Moody's used inventory levels, job growth or loss, credit cost and availability based on present mortgage rates and the Federal Reserve's Senior Loan Officer Survey.
The estimate also includes home buyer expectations by markets using as its main measure the 18-month moving average of home prices. As prices dip sharply, buyers would likely defer purchasing decisions and wait out for home prices to further decline until it hits rock bottom.
Massive unemployment rates are the most potent negative influence on home prices, Eric Belsky and Daniel McCue, economists at the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies, told the Los Angeles Times.
There's no sense of stabilization. The foreclosures are causing a vicious cycle, and the job market is weakening. This doesn't feel therapeutic anymore. This is undermining the economy," Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody's added
HOW DID THE CANADIANS ALLOW THIS CRIMINAL TO SLIP BY THEM?
ReplyDeleteNew York - VIN News has learned that Brazilian authorities have been notified to be on the lookout for [Rabbi] Elior Chen who is a fugitive from Israel, and is wanted in connection with the extensive child abuse case, that alleges children of his followers were beaten, whipped and forced to eat feces in order to correct bad behaviour.
this comes after a credible witness came forward and claims that he was with [Rabbi] Chen on a flight from Toronto to Brazil about a month ago.
The case of [Rabbi] Elior Chen has gotten worldwide media attention, and the international police force INTERPOL has issued last month an international arrest warrant.
VIN News has also learned that the famed television show America Most Wanted, that is notorious for profiling heinous crimes and fugitives, has been working in the last few weeks to gather information on [Rabbi] Chen for a possible feature on its show.
Dear Editor,
ReplyDeleteTzedek Tzedek Tirdof, justice, justice you must pursue. This is a concept taught in the Torah as a basic tenet of human interaction. When a person sees an injustice taken place they must speak out vigorously against it. During the time of counting sefirah, we are ever more conscious of our obligations to love and respect our fellow man. We mourn the deaths of 24,000 dear, brilliant students of Rabbi Akiva, a great Talmudic scholar.
What caused the deaths of 24,000 brilliant rabbis? The Gemmorah explains that they failed to show respect for one another. Rabbi Elya Svei explains this as follows: how can it be that so many students, great rabbis forgot the concept of V’ahavta L’eacha Kamocha, love your fellow Jew as yourself to cause such a harsh decree to be brought down on them? He answers a frightening answer, only some of the students were not displaying respect for one another. The problem is that the rest of their chevra sat by too intimidated to stop the behaviors. They failed to stop the great injustice being done. Because many of them were erudite scholars they should have known better.
It took the advent of the Orthodox blogosphere to change the acceptance and complacency we as frum Jews have given to rampant chillul Hashem, desecration of Hashems name. With anonymity and the ability to vociferously protest injustices taken place in our world, a new generation of activists has emerged. By focusing on facts, as painful as they might be, the frum community has emerged from a deep slumber. These fighters for the sake of the safety of our nation have pulled up the rug and put the fire to the feet of our community.
We have witnessed the great chillul Hashem of seeing the public and private transgressions of our community members being splashed onto inter/national headlines. We read in horror of what was done to innocent children by a “kabbalah” rabbi in Israel. We cringe when we read about a teenager sent by his parents to a modern day concentration camp by his own parents. There is outrage and then we become numb again to our daily lives.
By now we are all well aware of the at-risk teenage trend, where teens drop out of school and create their own society. Their groups are loosely associated individuals who bond to create a fraternity of accepting individuals. Many of the larger cities have these societies, and sadly the trend is growing.
The greatest concern facing the Jewish outreach worker for the past five years has been the fear of these societies joining together as a union. The outreach workers and lay leaders of four large communities have informed us that in the past month our worst fears were recognized. The societies are united by a common concern, the injustice done to one of their greatest recovery advocates. He embodies everything that they are going through, an individual who has been ridiculed, maligned and knocked down, but has always risen again.
This past Shabbos, Parshas Emor these groups gathered nationwide at a prearranged time to say three chapters of Tehillim, and daven for the 63 names of Chicagoans who have committed to boycott the event. A Chicago askan of note who has encouraged this public outcry explained how this idea was chosen: “Rabbi Finkel is a man of integrity, and was terribly ba’aveled (sinned to) by members of the community and particularly the father of the kallah. Attending a wedding made to be metzaer (pain) someone who has done so much for our neediest children is a public chillul Hashem. Today over 250 teenagers gathered nationwide, and 20 at the Kosel to daven for Rabbi Finkel’s continuing success and to praise those in Chicago who have committed to abstain from attending the event. We are confident that the list of names will grow by next Shabbos’ gathering”.
As a fellow community rav who has worked alongside him on a number of causes, I can testify to his selfless dedication to the klal. It is not surprising that his many talmidim, have banded together in defense of his honor. It takes a major outrage to rouse our community to action. It appears that the sleep of Chicagoans has been disturbed.
The teen societies are watching our every move; it is time to create a Kiddush Hashem, a great sanctification of Hashem’s name. What transpired this past Shabbos was a giant step for these affected teens, Judaism’s weakest link. The words of tefillah said by these hurt souls are a great zechus to the 63 people who have made the commitment to glorifying Hashem’s name.
May many more follow your lead, and publicly decry chillul Hashem in our community.
Anonymous
Chicago, Illinois
Sunday, May 11, 2008
ReplyDeleteBeis Sureh girls' school cares less about your kids' health than a Public School
While parents at New York City Public School 185 are fighting Verizon for putting cell phone towers near the school and endangering their childrens' life, Beis Sureh girls' school in Boro-Park is filling their rooftop with cell towers, squeezing every penny they can make out of it.
The parents of P.S. 185 have been doing whatever they can to fight Verizon and get rid of the cell phone towers that have been put up across from the school because of the dangerous radiation that these towers spew. On the other hand, Beis Sureh girls' school in Boro-Park has a humongous overcrowded roof just full of those dangerous radiation-factory cell phone towers right on top of the heads of Yiddishe children.
Does Beis Sureh really care so little about your daughter's health that they are willing to risk her life just to make a couple of bucks from the cell phone tower rent? It sure seems so.
So, the bottom line is if you enjoy the sadism of the school's administration, the exorbitant tuition that they charge and also don't give a darn about the radiation being pumped into your kids, then Beis Sureh is the place for you.
Leave Comment ---This article posted by Chaptzem : 9:30 AM
Comments:
Can you tell us which location? Can you provide a picture?
Comment Credit ---This article posted by Anonymous : May 11, 2008 10:11 AM
What about the people who live in the neighborhood? They have a right to know.
Comment Credit ---This article posted by Anonymous : May 11, 2008 10:38 AM
So far there's no evidence about radiation from phone towers. Do you have any evidence to support your claim?
Comment Credit ---This article posted by Anonymous : May 11, 2008 12:11 PM
Chaptzem, I think you're wrong with posting such claim without first thoroughly investigating all issues involved. First, there are many studies about this issue, and not every one supports your claim. Second, even if there is radiation, it is being directed to other directions. The zone below the antenna is not being effected. You should rather be questioning other towers that point to schools!
Comment Credit ---This article posted by Isi : May 11, 2008 12:31 PM
As someone who does not use a cell phone because of potential harm, putting my kids in potential harm's way is a no-no. For the life of me I can't understand geniuses who wait for double blind studies to prove or disprove because by then it's too late. Thank you Chaptzem for once again not shying away from telling it like it is.
Comment Credit ---This article posted by Anonymous : May 11, 2008 1:27 PM
All you need to do is put a picture of this school with all those towers in the mainstream papers including the yiddish ones and watch what happens
Comment Credit ---This article posted by Anonymous : May 11, 2008 3:34 PM
overcharging tuition?
you're not talking about bais sureh, are you?
then you have no clue about what you're talking about
Comment Credit ---This article posted by Anonymous : May 11, 2008 4:24 PM
I have conclusive proof that cell phone signal do indeed emit radiation, more specifically, microwaves. You can do this at home. You need 2 cell phones and a raw egg. Do the following: 1)Make sure both cell phones are fully charged. 2) Call one cell phone from the other cell phone. 3) Pick up the call on the 2nd cell phone. Do not hang up either of the phones. 4) Put a raw egg between the 2 phones. Put the phones as close to the egg as possible.
After about 20 minutes, you'll see that the egg is somewhat cooked. After about an hour, you have a HARD BOILED EGG. They are literaly cooking our brains and I feel terrible for those precious children. Please try this and let me know how long it took you to cook the egg with your cell phones.
Comment Credit ---This article posted by Anonymous : May 11, 2008 5:06 PM
There actually are recent studies that indicate a potential link between Cell phone use and brain cancer. There are studies that show cellular level changes from electromagnetic radiation as well. True it has not been proven, but why take a chance.
Comment Credit ---This article posted by Anonymous : May 11, 2008 5:23 PM
Right! All you need to do is put a picture of this school with all those towers in the mainstream papers including the yiddish ones and watch what happens!
If you got the goods, don't sit still! Do we CH"V have to wait for the Hespedim?
Comment Credit ---This article posted by Anonymous : May 11, 2008 7:52 PM
I can't keep track of the multiple marriages of Pinter lawyer Barry Bohrer, but at least one of them (possibly still current) was to Assistant US Attorney Sarah Northrop Chapman.
ReplyDeleteTHE JEWISH STAR
ReplyDeleteMay 9, 2008
Teacher fired for
‘questionable
comments’
HAFTR sixth graders
went to administrators
By Meyer Fertig
The Hebrew Academy of the Five Towns and Rockaway fired a male Hebrew language teacher after several female sixth graders told school officials of inappropriate
comments he allegedly made to them.
HAFTR Head of School Rabbi David Leibtag confirmed the firing occurred before Pesach but said he couldn’t discuss specifics of a personnel matter.
“The safety of our children is our number one priority –– not just their physical safety but their emotional and social safety,” he said in a telephone interview. “We were apprised by some students of some questionable comment by the teacher. We moved rapidly to investigate and took appropriate and swift action.”
The teacher had been with the school for six years with no previous complaints, sources told The Jewish Star, and when confronted he vehemently denied any wrongdoing. Nonetheless, the school decided to err on the side of caution and let him go.
“When it comes to children you just have to be exceptionally
cautious,” Rabbi Leibtag said. “I’m not waiting for three strikes, or giving second chances.”
“At no point do I believe there was any clear and present
danger to a child,” emphasized Rabbi Leibtag. Parents received a letter advising them of the action the school had taken, he said.
Current HAFTR policy calls for performing criminal background checks on new hires, but the fired teacher was hired before the policy was adopted.
Elliot Pasik, a Cedarhurst attorney who conducted virtually
a one-man crusade to pass a law requiring criminal background checks on faculty hires at non-public schools, now heads the newly formed Board of Advocates for Jewish Children (BAJC), a grassroots organization devoted to that cause.
“The teachable moment is that while HAFTR did the right thing for terminating an employee...who made a sexualized comment to a child, another school might not.”
The “heart of the problem,” Pasik said, is that a different nonpublic school might choose not to discipline an employee in a
similar circumstance and “under the current law are under no
legal compunction to. ”New York laws for protecting non-public school children are “probably the weakest in the country,” he said.
Candidates for faculty positions in public schools are
required to cover the $95 cost of fingerprinting and a background
check. The background checks are processed by a handful of employees on the state payroll.
A bill that passed the State Senate last year would have required fingerprinting and background checks on non-public school faculty candidates. It died
in the Assembly.
The legislation has been reintroduced this year by its sponsor, Senator Dean Skelos
(R-Rockville Centre); however, it does not have the support of Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver.
“The Assembly Majority is committed to the security and well being of all students in New York State. We supported this effort in 2006 by authorizing nonpublic
and private schools to fingerprint and conduct background checks
for prospective employees, ”Speaker Silver told The Jewish Star Tuesday. “The recent legislation [to require background checks] is an unfunded mandate that may cause added burden to the nonpublic and private schools. Individual schools
already have the ability to gauge their need for these types of
added security measures and can do so at anytime.”
Some yeshiva administrators expressed strong reservations to the Speaker’s office that the costs of mandatory fingerprinting and background checks would fall on
their already strapped private schools. But Senator Skelos said in a sponsor’s memorandum accompanying the bill that “administrative expenses,” already being met by the state, are the only financial implications of the bill.
The legislation is a communal responsibility, Pasik believes.
“Kol yisroel areivim zeh lazeh –– just as we are concerned for our
own children in yeshivas in the South Shore area, we have to be
concerned for children elsewhere.”
After witnessing Leib Pinter's mesirus nefesh, I believe he is zoyche to the aliyos I give him. He's in such a rush to get to musser seder, that he parks illegally in front of Mirrer yeshiva.
ReplyDeleteMonday » May 12 » 2008
ReplyDeleteSex charges devastate school
U.S. arrest. Selwyn House parents struggle to tell children about teacher
JEFF HEINRICH
The Gazette
Sunday, May 11, 2008
A trusted teacher caught in an apparent kiddie porn sting south of the border. How do you explain that to the kids? That's the question parents of Selywn House students are facing this weekend.
"It really breaks our heart - we grieve as parents," said Lennie Trottenberg, whose son is in Grade 1 at the elite Westmount school, which is once again the focus of sex-abuse allegations.
The cause was the arrest Thursday in Virginia of Richard Doucet, a popular Grade 3 and Grade 5 teacher. He is now behind bars on child pornography and solicitation charges.
Yesterday afternoon and Friday, dozens of parents at Selwyn showed up for four 120-minute counselling sessions on how best to broach the subject with their children before they return to class tomorrow.
"They told us that each child is going to be different, and that the conversation has to be age-appropriate," Brian Trottenberg, Lennie's husband, said after yesterday's meeting.
"Tell them the truth, as much as you can," said Trottenberg, whose son was not one of Doucet's students.
"My kid is 7 years old. We're going to have to tell him (the teacher) did something that was bad, that he's in trouble for it and that he's not going to be coming back. If (the boy) has any questions he needs to ask us, he needs to talk and feel comfortable - that's about it." Doucet, who is in his 30s, was arrested late Thursday in Fredricksburg, Va.
According to school officials, police had told them he had gone there to meet who he thought was a 13-year-old boy he had contacted on the Internet. Instead, he was met by an undercover detective. Doucet was charged with soliciting a minor and possessing child pornography for the purpose of distribution.
"This is very disturbing news but also very sudden news and a huge surprise to us," Selwyn headmaster Will Mitchell told reporters outside the school yesterday. "Mr. Doucet was a respected colleague and an effective teacher." Doucet - who is married but has no children - had no criminal record and passed normal background checks when he was hired in 1999, Mitchell said. Doucet was a homeroom teacher who taught math and English. He is also well known in Notre Dame de Grâce as a church organist.
Several parents left the counselling sessions in tears, refusing to be interviewed.
"We're all surprised and in something of a state of shock," Mitchell said. "There's anxiety, of course, as well." With the school's knowledge, Doucet was in the U.S. to attend a week-long event in Atlanta, the International Reading Association's annual conference. It wound up Thursday and police said Doucet flew to Washington, D.C., then took the subway and a train to Fredricksburg.
Five hundred and seventy students attend Selwyn House, on Côte St. Antoine Rd. just above Sherbrooke St. Tuition there is $16,000 a year.
In his nine years at Selwyn, Doucet taught about 360 students, Mitchell said.
Asked if the school had any reason to believe Doucet committed any sexual misconduct at the school itself over his career there, Mitchell replied: "None that we know of.
"Everything I know, I know from the Virginia police, and Mr. Doucet is reported by them to me to have said that he never interfered with a student at Selwyn House." This is not the first time the school has been rocked by sex-abuse allegations. This winter, it offered $5 million to settle a class action by students who allege they were molested by teachers there in the 1960s, '70s and '80s.
On the heels of that scandal, does the school worry its reputation is once again taking a hit? "Of course it's a concern," Mitchell said. "But I do believe that this is a safe place for students." Doucet's school-issue laptop computer has been seized by police in Virginia, he added. "We've checked our own computers (here) and there is nothing on our system. ... (But) what people do outside (the school) on their computers, we wouldn't know." For parents, the news is disturbing, but it's also an opportunity for them to educate their children in the ways of the world, sordid as they can sometimes be, Trottenberg said.
"A lot more conversation will come out of this, whether it be for this incident or inappropriate touching or just sex in general," he said.
"With every bad comes something good. You never know."
jheinrich@ thegazette.canwest.com
© The Gazette (Montreal) 2008
http://www.courts.state.ny.us/courts/ad2/calendar/webcal/motions/2008/M65534.pdf
ReplyDeleteThe Pinters were sued by Independence Bank and lost. Shmelka Pinter filed an appeal but later withdrew.
Can someone explain exactly who is persecuting Finkel's son and why?
ReplyDeletehttp://nypdconfidential.com/columns/2000/000410.html
ReplyDeleteYou swindle an 80-year-old widow out of her $240,000 home. You steal $56,000 from the city's welfare department. You pass $17,000 of bad checks.
No problem if you're Simon Jacobson, a Brooklyn resident with political connections in the Orthodox Jewish community. First, District Attorney Joe Hynes allows his indictment to be dismissed for lack of evidence. Surely, it's coincidence that Hynes was running for governor and sought the Orthodox Jewish community's support.
Only the persistence of the police Special Frauds Squad and the outrage of Hynes' own staff, who contacted Your Humble Servant, caused Hynes to get Jacobson indicted last year.
Enter Abe Diamond, Jack Weinman, Hirsch Wulliger and Saul Perlstein, board members of the Brooklyn-based Keren Aniyim charity, operating out of the advertising agency of Mordy Mehlman at 1314 Ave. J.
Apparently, there aren't enough truly needy people in the world, so Diamond, Weinman, Wulliger and Perlstein solicited 10 donors-whom a spokesman for the charity refused to identify-to contribute money for Jacobson to make full restitution and serve the minimum sentence.
The money (the $313,000 plus $25,000 bail) was paid not to the victims but to Jacobson, who then gave it to the court for the victims, allowing him to obtain a minimum 6-month jail term, which began Friday. As Hynes' top aide, Dennis Hawkins, explained, "If Jacobson had to spend more time in jail, he may not have been able to repay the money."
http://www.thejewishweek.com/viewArticle/c40_a9395/News/Israel.html
ReplyDeleteRabbi Talansky is known to have served as treasurer for the New Jerusalem Foundation, a charity Olmert founded reportedly because he had no control over the existing Jerusalem Foundation.
Political opponents were said to have charged that the New Jerusalem Foundation was used more for political purposes than to help local charities. And Rabbi Talansky, 75, was reportedly listed in Olmert’s logs as “The Laundry Man.”
In 2000, the relatively little-known charity raised $376,000, according to its tax returns, and its Web site said its mission is to enhance the “social and economic development and redevelopment of Jerusalem.”
Rabbi Talansky was ordained at Yeshiva University’s Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary in 1956, according to a Yeshiva spokeswoman, and led congregations in Portland, Ore., and Far Rockaway, Queens, before going into fundraising.
He served as executive director of American Friends of Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem, holding the position from the mid-1980s until 1997, according to the organization’s current director, Paul Glasser.
As the rabbi’s wealth grew over time, he became involved in supporting a number of Jewish organizations, most of them Orthodox. Among them was Migdal Ohr, an organization that helps underprivileged children in northern Israel and where he served as the board chairman, and the Mesorah Heritage Foundation, which raises money for the Jewish book publisher ArtScroll. Rabbi Talansky once donated $100,000 to the foundation in honor of his mother’s 99th birthday, according to the foundation’s executive director, Meir Zlotowitz.
He has lived in several upscale Jewish neighborhoods on Long Island, including Lawrence, Great Neck and Woodmere.
Rabbi Yaakov Lerner of the Young Israel of Great Neck, where Rabbi Talansky once was a member, would not comment for this story.
Though he is a registered Democrat, according to The New York Times, Rabbi Talansky also has donated to hawkishly pro-Israel U.S. Republicans. He gave $1,000 to the Bush-Cheney campaign in 2003 and some $5,000 to an exploratory committee for Rudolph Giuliani in 2000.
In addition to Olmert, his longtime aide, Shula Zaken, was questioned. She has reportedly been quizzed on four separate occasions and is believed to have invoked her right to remain silent. She has been placed under house arrest through this week.
http://www.blueridgenow.com/article/20080509/ZNYT03/805090366/1170/BUSINESS/ZNYT03/Olmert_x2018_Never_Took_a_Bribe_x2019_He_Says
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, new details emerged about the businessman, Morris Talansky, who is at the heart of the investigation. Mr. Talansky, 75, has a long history of business disputes in the United States and Israel and an up-and-down career as a fund-raiser and investor. He has been accused at least twice of resorting to force to collect debts.
Olmert was suspected of receiving large sums of illicit money directly and indirectly over an extended period of time. They have already questioned him, his former close aide Shula Zaken and his former law partner Uri Messer.
At the news conference, Mr. Olmert said he met Mr. Talansky in 1993, the year he was elected mayor of Jerusalem, and had received contributions from him on several occasions over the years. But he said running for office was expensive and taking contributions was legal.
What remains unclear is what investigators suspect the money was aimed at obtaining, if it was not for election campaigns, and what Mr. Olmert provided, if anything, in return. The money in question is widely reported in the Israeli media to have come in envelopes and amounted to hundreds of thousands of dollars.
A senior government official who declined to be named said the investigation that produced Mr. Talansky’s name was one looking into Mr. Olmert’s activities when he was minister of industry and trade.
What information Mr. Talansky is contributing to the investigation is not clear, and his lawyer in Israel did not return phone calls seeking comment. His brother, Kalman, who lives in Queens, declined to comment on the matter.
Channel 2 television in Israel caught Mr. Talansky on the street on Thursday. Unshaven, wearing a dress shirt and dark pants, Mr. Talansky spoke in English, saying the investigation was “totally baffling to me,” adding, “I have never been involved in politics.”
He said that he had two children in Jerusalem, had come here hundreds of times since the late 1960s and cared only about helping Israel through the building of religious academies and other institutions.
A rabbi and investor, he shuttles between a home in Woodsburgh on Long Island and an apartment in Jerusalem.
A review of eight lawsuits in Manhattan and Nassau County concerning Mr. Talansky since 1995 show that he has waged numerous battles with business partners and organizations that enlisted his services.
“Mr. Talansky is something of a Lawyers’ Full Employment Act,” said William J. Davis, a Manhattan lawyer who is handling several lawsuits in which Mr. Talansky is suing or being sued. Several involve a supplier of hotel minibars that Mr. Talansky personally backed and invited others to help bankroll.
Executives connected to leading Jewish organizations in New York that have listed Mr. Talansky as a major donor or put him on their boards — including Yeshiva University’s rabbinical seminary and the Center for Jewish History — say he has not always carried out his pledges.
At least two of the lawsuits involving Mr. Talansky contain allegations that he or people he enlisted made threats in the course of collecting debts or resolving business conflicts.
He sued one of his accusers, Richard Penzer, for libel in 1995 in state court on the grounds that the accusations had jeopardized Mr. Talansky’s longtime job raising money for Shaare Zedek Hospital in Jerusalem. The case was settled three years later, when Mr. Talansky accepted $60,000 and a one-line apology from Mr. Penzer.
Initially at odds with Mr. Talansky over a real estate deal, Mr. Penzer had sent donors and officials associated with Shaare Zedek letters in 1994 asserting that Mr. Talansky had threatened him “with the expressed goal of extorting money.”
Court records include a sworn statement from a police file, dated January 1992, in which a Long Island man said he had met Mr. Talansky one night at Scores, a topless bar in Manhattan, and tried to help him collect a debt from Mr. Penzer.
“He began to tell me about how he took a devastating loss of approximately $2.8 million in a real estate deal that went bad,” the Long Island man, Michael Sciotto, told the police. “He was swindled and he described it as a setup.”
The statement continued, “I told him I would talk to Mr. Penzer and see if I could shake him up a little and possibly could get Talansky’s money back.”
In another lawsuit, Mr. Talansky sued a man who he said promised him “substantial interest at low or no risk” on a $300,000 loan he made in 1998 to the Forgotten Woman, a retail chain that went bankrupt three months after his loan.
After much litigation, the defendant, Frederick Schulman, prevailed in court on the fraud counts but also made a counterclaim accusing Mr. Talansky of sending “thugs” to collect money from him.
Mr. Talansky replied that he had sold the right to collect part of the debt to a third party and could not be held responsible. The judge rejected Mr. Schulman’s request for summary judgment on the extortion charge, but said he could pursue it in a trial. The parties eventually settled, according to a lawyer in the case.
In 2002, Mr. Talansky also sued and lost a breach of contract case against the American Jewish Historical Society, after it terminated his services “without any warning,” he contended, just a few months after hiring him to help with fund-raising.
In ruling against him, the judge said that just because the society had promised $75,000 a year for two or three days a week of his time did not mean he was being guaranteed a year’s pay.
Postville , IA - Immigration officials are raiding the Agriprocessors Inc. plant in the northeast Iowa town of Postville.
ReplyDeleteAgents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Monday issued criminal search warrants for aggravated identify theft and fraudulent Social Security numbers.
Agency spokesman Tim Counts told the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier that civil search warrants also were issued for illegal immigrants, and agents and medical professionals are evaluating those who have been arrested.
Jeff Giertz, Communications Director for Rep. Bruce Braley, tells TV9 that I.C.E. officials have said to expect hundreds of arrests, maybe as high as 600 or 700. Giertz also says that I.C.E. officials say that the Cattle Congress grounds in Waterloo will be used for processing, not long-term detention.
Several vehicles from the immigration agency and at least eight Iowa State Patrol cars and vans are at the plant. A helicopter is also hovering.
Agriprocessors is the world’s largest kosher meatpacking plant
News Source: KCRG
For God's Sake, this can't be allowed to go on!
ReplyDeleteNew York - U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia will be the guest speaker at Agudath Israel of America’s upcoming 86th annual dinner, organizers have announced.
The dinner will take place on Sunday evening, June 1 at the New York Hilton.
Agudath Israel’s dinner this year will be honoring the 10th yahrtzeit of Agudath Israel of America’s late president, Rabbi Moshe Sherer, z”l, with the presentation of a special Sefer Torah written in his memory.
This year’s Rabbi Moshe Sherer Memorial Award for lifelong devotion to Klal Yisroel will be presented to Chaim H. Leshkowitz. The HaGaon Rav Aharon Kotler Memorial Award for distinguished service to Torah will be accepted by the Herzka family, in memory of Rabbi Yaakov Yitzchok Herzka, z”l. The Reb Elimelech Tress Award for the preservation of the legacy of the Shearis Hapleitah will be accepted by Nussy Elbogen, in memory of his father, A. Leibish Elbogen, z”l. The Moreinu Yaakov Rosenheim Award for distinguished service to Agudath Israel will be presented to Yitzchok Fuchs.
The Wolf Friedman Young Leadership Award will be presented to Raphael Tress.
Avodas Hakodesh awards will be presented to Simcha B. David, Yaakov Kluger and Rabbi Boruch Saks.
HEy-Rubashkin got busted today!!!
ReplyDeleteU guys picking up on this?
This is being reported on Midwest radio stations.
ReplyDeleteThe Dept of Homeland Security ordered everyone out of the schlachthoiz. It is currently closed & 700 of 1100 employees, mostly illegal immigrants and possibly the Rubashkin brothers themselves have been arrested. The Federal govt is detaining everyone at the State fairgrounds. Iowa State Police are reporting that the entire city of Postville is effectively shut down and the area is surrounded by armored vehicles and hundreds of law enforcement personnel.
Stock up on meat before prices skyrocket.
http://failedmessiah.typepad.com/failed_messiahcom/2008/05/breaking-us-imm.html
ReplyDeleteIf I Were Barak Obama
ReplyDeleteby Rabbi Mark Dratch
Special to the Jewish Week
http://thejewishweek.com/viewArticle/c55_a9400/Editorial__Opinion/Opinion.html#
Response to criticism of Reb Yankel Horowitz by Reb Avrohom Tikotzky:
ReplyDeleteReb Avrohom:
What’s wrong with Rabbi Horowitz yelling against unzere feiner yidden making a Chillul Hashem? He isn’t calling for violence against those who make a chillul Hashem. All he asked was to let Jews make a kiddush Hashem. His article stirred your consience after reading for a month story after story of how your immediate and extended families ruined their espective childrens lives. Even if they can function they experienced life-altering events. I am a chaver of your brother-in-law, and remember your cousin’s son very well. Both of them have gevaldige kishroinos and koiach hashpaah. How many people could they have influenced if they were allowed to have menucha.
As a mechanech in one of America’s elite yeshiva ktanas in the New York area, I learnt more pratim v’dikdukim in inyanei chinuch from your cousin’s son than all my 20 years in chinuch. His finger was on the pulse of the Jewish teenage scene, both for inyanei kiruv and at-risk. When he spoke, he acted out the conflicting thoughts of a teenager trying to find the derech. He discussed how to answer the need of every conflict. I can be mai’id bifnei kal am v’eidah that had he been allowed to stay in hashpa’ah of teenagers many teens would come back to yiddishkeit. How can anyone forget the ne’eimus and ehrlichkeit of your dear brother-in-law? He never lost his cool no matter how tough the challenge. He would give the shirt off his back to help another yid. He is a me’urav b’daas im habriyois, how your family found a complaint is mammesh a pelleh. His bekiyus in shas and poskim is something I aspire to.
I feel sorry that recently your family rug has been pulled back, and there was bizyoinis hiding under it.
HOWEVER, after discussing the inyan at length with a Rosh Yeshiva familiar with the at-risk scene in Chicago, it barur k’chama that Rav Malkiel can help. The Rosh Yeshva heard about the kiddush Hashem this Shabbos and said he acks it fully. These teens are rallying for kavod hatorah, kavod habriyus, and against a bizui talmid chacham b’rabim. They are mammesh hurting for his bushas, that the rabbonim attacked him based on his lack of kibud av, without hearing his side. I was assured that Rav Furst indeed backtracked after he found out some pratim, but it was to little too late. As the Rosh Yeshiva of the chosson, and a yedid ne’eman of the kallah’s father Rav Malkiel could surely arrange a wedding in New York and a choshiver chabura for the chassuna.
Anoichi Hashem comes before Kabed l’lamdecha shekulam hayavim b’chvoidi. Medarf alleh mol machen a kiddush Hashem. With a bissel zehirus to the kavoid of the Rebboinoi Shel Oilam, your mishpacha can make a gevaldige kiddush Hashem. Hatzlacha rabbah.
what is the story in chicago
ReplyDeleteand i find it hard to believe that malkiel kotler can help anyone
his family gioves monety to hillary while people are sstarving in lakewood
Can't wait for Menachem Lubinskly's press release. My guess it will go something like this:
ReplyDelete"We are proud to announce that Agriprocessors is consolidating its workforce and will only be employing naturalized citizens going forward. We are cooperating with federal authorities in rooting out those past employees that gained employment with us by using false identification. We are committed to having the finest workforce of any meat plant in the world and will continue to honor the rights of all workers."
The best thing that could happen to Agriprocessors is if it went bust, got bought by honest yidden and reopened by someone who respects kashrus and workers. Did you read about a suspected Meth lab operating in the plant??? Workers being physically abused? What kind of people are these? 16 Federal and state agencies were involved in the raid including the FBI and the IRS! We don't have to worry about anti-Semites making trouble for Jews, we have the Rubashkins!
ReplyDeleteRubashkin is temporarily closed for inventory.
ReplyDelete"Got to Give It Up" is a 1977 hit single recorded by American soul music legend Marvin Gaye. The song held the number one position on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 for one week, from June 18, 1977 to June 25.
ReplyDeleteThe Fireman says...
ReplyDeletePostville should be careful, Rubashkin could be getting ready to hold a "fire" sale.
nu whats the chicago story
ReplyDeleteThe Chicago story so far sounds like the stupified blabberings of a drunk. How does the poster expect us to understand what is going on with his incoherent harangues and no solid backgound history to the story he is constantly adding to? Sounds a bit like the guy who kept on cut-and-pasting the Ohel alert crap.
ReplyDelete700 x 10,000 = $7 million
ReplyDeleteFederal Immigration and Nationality Act
Fines beginning at no less than $2000 and up to $10,000 per alien may be assessed for knowingly hiring an illegal alien. The amount of the fee escalates depending on whether there are repeated violations. If there is found to be a pattern or practice of violations, employers may be sentenced to up to 5 years of imprisonment.
Aliens and employers violating immigration laws are subject to arrest, detention, and seizure of their vehicles or property.
Private persons and entities may initiate civil suits to obtain injunctions and treble damages against enterprises that conspire to or actually violate federal alien smuggling, harboring, or document fraud statutes, under the Racketeer-Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO).
Employers who aid or abet the preparation of false tax returns by failing to pay income or Social Security taxes for illegal alien employees, or who knowingly make payments using false names or Social Security numbers, are subject to IRS criminal and civil sanctions.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/13/world/middleeast/13girls.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&pagewanted=print
ReplyDeleteNY Times
May 13, 2008
Generation Faithful
Love on the Female Side of the Divide
By KATHERINE ZOEPF
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — The dance party in Atheer Jassem al-Othman’s living room was in full swing. The guests — about two dozen girls in their late teens — had arrived, and Ms. Othman and her mother were passing around cups of sweet tea and dishes of dates.
About half the girls were swaying and gyrating, without the slightest self-consciousness, among overstuffed sofas, heavy draperies, tables larded with figurines and ornately-covered tissue boxes. Their head-to-toe abayas, balled up and tossed onto chairs, looked like black cloth puddles.
Suddenly, the music stopped, and an 18-year-old named Alia tottered forward.
“Girls? I have something to tell you,” Alia faltered, appearing to sway slightly on her high heels. She paused anxiously, and the next words came out in a rush. “I’ve gotten engaged!” There was a chorus of shrieks at the surprise announcement and Alia burst into tears, as did several of the other girls.
Ms. Othman’s mother smiled knowingly and left the room, leaving the girls to their moment of emotion. The group has been friends since they were of middle-school age, and Alia would be the first of them to marry.
A cellphone picture of Alia’s fiancé — a 25-year-old military man named Badr — was passed around, and the girls began pestering Alia for the details of her showfa. A showfa — literally, a “viewing” — usually occurs on the day that a Saudi girl is engaged.
A girl’s suitor, when he comes to ask her father for her hand in marriage, has the right to see her dressed without her abaya.
In some families, he may have a supervised conversation with her. Ideally, many Saudis say, her showfa will be the only time in a girl’s life that she is seen this way by a man outside her family.
The separation between the sexes in Saudi Arabia is so extreme that it is difficult to overstate. Saudi women may not drive, and they must wear black abayas and head coverings in public at all times. They are spirited around the city in cars with tinted windows, attend girls-only schools and university departments, and eat in special “family” sections of cafes and restaurants, which are carefully partitioned from the sections used by single male diners.
Special women-only gyms, women-only boutiques and travel agencies, even a women-only shopping mall, have been established in Riyadh in recent years to serve women who did not previously have access to such places unless they were chaperoned by a male relative.
Playful as they are, girls like Ms. Othman and her friends are well aware of the limits that their conservative society places on their behavior. And, for the most part, they say that they do not seriously question those limits.
Most of the girls say their faith, in the strict interpretation of Islam espoused by the Wahhabi religious establishment here, runs very deep. They argue a bit among themselves about the details — whether it is acceptable to have men on your Facebook friend list, or whether a male first cousin should ever be able to see you without your face covered — and they peppered this reporter with questions about what the young Saudi men she had met were thinking about and talking about.
But they seem to regard the idea of having a conversation with a man before their showfas and subsequent engagements with very real horror. When they do talk about girls who chat with men online or who somehow find their own fiancés, these stories have something of the quality of urban legends about them: fuzzy in their particulars, told about friends of friends, or “someone in my sister’s class.”
Well-brought-up unmarried young women here are so isolated from boys and men that when they talk about them, it sometimes sounds as if they are discussing a different species.
Questions for the Fiancé
Later that evening, over fava bean stew, salad, and meat-filled pastries, Alia revealed that she was to be allowed to speak to her fiancé on the phone. Their first phone conversation was scheduled for the following day, she said, and she was so worried about what to say to Badr that she was compiling a list of questions.
“Ask him whether he likes his work,” one of her friends suggested. “Men are supposed to love talking about their work.”
“Ask him what kind of cellphone he has, and what kind of car,” suggested another. “That way you’ll be able to find out how he spends his money, whether he’s free with it or whether he’s stingy.”
Alia nodded earnestly, dark ringlets bouncing, and took notes. She had been so racked with nerves during her showfa that she had almost dropped the tray of juice her father had asked her to bring in to her fiancé, and she could hardly remember a thing he had said. She was to learn a bit more about him during this next conversation.
According to about 30 Saudi girls and women between ages 15 and 25, all interviewed during December, January and February, it is becoming more and more socially acceptable for young engaged women to speak to their fiancés on the phone, though more conservative families still forbid all contact between engaged couples.
It is considered embarrassing to admit to much strong feeling for a fiancé before the wedding and, before their engagements, any kind of contact with a man is out of the question. Even so, young women here sometimes resort to clandestine activities to chat with or to meet men, or simply to catch a rare glimpse into the men’s world.
Though it is as near to hand as the offices they pass each morning on the way to college, or the majlis, a traditional home reception room, where their fathers and brothers entertain friends, the men’s world is so remote from them that some Saudi girls resort to disguise in order to venture into it.
At Prince Sultan University, where Atheer Jassem al-Othman, 18, is a first-year law student, a pair of second-year students recently spent a mid-morning break between classes showing off photographs of themselves dressed as boys.
In the pictures, the girls wore thobes, the ankle-length white garments traditionally worn by Saudi men, and had covered their hair with the male headdresses called shmaghs. One girl had used an eyeliner pencil to give herself a grayish, stubble-like mist along her jaw line. Displayed on the screens of the two girls’ cellphones, the photographs evoked little exclamations of congratulation as they were passed around.
“A lot of girls do it,” said an 18-year-old named Sara al-Tukhaifi who explained that a girl and her friends might cross-dress, sneaking thobes out of a brother’s closet, then challenge each other to enter the Saudi male sphere in various ways, by walking nonchalantly up to the men-only counter in a McDonalds, say, or even by driving.
“It’s just a game,” Ms. Tukhaifi said, although detention by the religious police is always a possibility. “I haven’t done it myself, but those two are really good at it. They went into a store and pretended to be looking at another girl — they even got her to turn her face away.”
Grinning, Ms. Tukhaifi mimicked the gesture, pressing her face into the corner of her hijab with exaggerated pretend modesty while her classmate Shaden giggled. Saudi newspapers often lament the rise of rebellious behavior among young Saudis. There are reports of a recent spate of ugly confrontations between youths and the religious police, and of a supposed increase in same-sex love affairs among young people frustrated at the strict division between the genders.
And certainly, practices like “numbering” — where a group of young men in a car chase another car they believe to contain young women, and try to give the women their phone number via Bluetooth, or by holding a written number up to the window — have become a very visible part of Saudi urban life.
Flirting by Phone
A woman can’t switch her phone’s Bluetooth feature on in a public place without receiving a barrage of the love poems and photos of flowers and small children which many Saudi men keep stored on their phones for purposes of flirtation. And last year, Al Arabiya television reported that some young Saudis have started buying special “electronic belts,” which use Bluetooth technology to discreetly beam the wearer’s cellphone number and e-mail address at passing members of the opposite sex.
Ms. Tukhaifi and Shaden know of girls in their college who have passionate friendships, possibly even love affairs, with other girls but they say that this, like the cross-dressing, is just a “game” born of frustration, something that will inevitably end when the girls in question become engaged. And they and their friends say that they find the experience of being chased by boys in cars to be frightening, and insist that they do not know any girl who has actually spoken to a boy who contacted her via Bluetooth.
“If your family found out you were talking to a man online, that’s not quite as bad as talking to him on the phone,” Ms. Tukhaifi explained. “With the phone, everyone can agree that is forbidden, because Islam forbids a stranger to hear your voice. Online he only sees your writing, so that’s slightly more open to interpretation.
“One test is that if you’re ashamed to tell your family something, then you know for sure it’s wrong,” Ms. Tukhaifi continued. “For a while I had Facebook friends who were boys — I didn’t e-mail with them or anything, but they asked me to “friend” them and so I did. But then I thought about my family and I took them off the list.”
Ms. Tukhaifi and Shaden both spoke admiringly of the religious police, whom they see as the guardians of perfectly normal Saudi social values, and Shaden boasted lightly about an older brother who has become multazim, very strict in his faith, and who has been seeing to it that all her family members become more punctilious in their religious observance. “Praise be to God, he became multazim when he was in ninth grade,” Shaden recalled, fondly. “I remember how he started to grow his beard — it was so wispy when it started — and to wear a shorter thobe.” Saudi men often grow their beards long and wear their thobes cut above the ankles as signals of their religious devotion.
“I always go to him when I have problems,” said Shaden who, like many of the young Saudi women interviewed for this article, spoke on the condition that her last name be omitted. “And he’s not too strict — he still listens to music sometimes. I asked him once, ‘You do everything right and yet you’re listening to music?’ He said, ‘I know music is haram, and inshallah, with time I will be able to stop listening to music too.’ ” Haram means forbidden, and inshallah means “God willing.”
She added, “I told him, ‘I want a husband like you.’ ”
Separated From Cousins
Shaden lives in a large walled compound in a prosperous Riyadh suburb; her father’s brothers live with their families in separate houses within the compound, and the families share a common garden and pool. Shaden and several of her male cousins grew up playing together constantly, tearing around the pool together during the summer, and enjoying shared vacations.
Now that, at 17, she is considered an adult Saudi woman and must confine herself to the female sphere, she sometimes misses their company.
“Until I was in 9th or 10th grade, we used to put a carpet on the lawn and we would take hot milk and sit there with my boy cousins,” Shaden recalled, at home one February evening, in front of the television. She was serving a few female guests a party dip of her own invention, a concoction of yogurt, mayonnaise and thyme.
“But my mom and their mom got uncomfortable with it, and so we stopped,” she said. “Now we sometimes talk on MSN, or on the phone, but they shouldn’t ever see my face.”
“My sister and I sometimes ask my mom, ‘Why didn’t you breast-feed our boy cousins, too?’ ” Shaden continued.
She was referring to a practice called milk kinship that predates Islam and is still common in the Persian Gulf countries. A woman does not have to veil herself in front of a man she nursed as an infant, and neither do her biological children. The woman’s biological children and the children she has nursed are considered “milk siblings” and are prohibited from marrying.
“If my mom had breast-fed my cousins, we could sit with them, and it would all be much easier,” Shaden said. She turned back to the stack of DVDs she had been rifling through, and held up a copy of Pride and Prejudice, the version with Keira Knightley as Elizabeth Bennet, a film she says she has seen dozens of times.
“It’s a bit like our society, I think,” Shaden said of late Georgian England. “It’s dignified, and a bit strict. Doesn’t it remind you a little bit of Saudi Arabia? It’s my favorite DVD.”
Shaden sighed, deeply. “When Darcy comes to Elizabeth and says ‘I love you’ — that’s exactly the kind of love I want.”
My poor friend Moishy Pinter. I wonder what Mirrer yeshiva thinks that their 9th grade rebbe is an officer of Olympia Mortgage or that he is also on the payroll by his shyster shver Herzl Kranz's school, bankrolled by Jack Abramoff.
ReplyDeleteWhere this all leads no one knows but I don't think Mirrer yeshiva has ever seen one of their rebbeim get arrested before.
http://vosisneis.blogspot.com/
ReplyDeleteIt's a long story.
First Leah Kleim caught a Satmar News web site admin "DailyYid" accused of being a Child Molester who abused his children and his wife and others.
Satmar which has 2 rival groups got on his case because DailyYid was of one faction, the Zaloinim and was against the Aronim.
The Aronim Satmar started revealing his identity and caused the DailyYid.com to be forced to close down.
These foolish Satmars were dancing in the streets and announced on their rival site DailyYiden.blogspot.com "Mission Accomplished" that they closed down DailyYid the abuser.
Further more they said that they are "so nice" that they will close down their own site which displayd all the dirt on DailyYid Satmar.
However these darn fools conveniently forgot "forgot" that they have failed to get the child molester arrested!!!!???
Another Whistle Blower, captured all the negative against the DailyYid and preserved the stupidity of Satmar where they are not even ashamed of themselves to call it "Mission Accomplished: while the Abuser is free to abuse more Satmar children and all they have "accomplished" is to close down a blog.
What fools!
Before they deleted all their foolishness, it was all preserved at the following new blog.
http://vosisneis.blogspot.com/
This just sent in by a Jewish victim!
ReplyDelete-------------------------
Physician accused of sex abuse of children
At least 7 men say they were victims
By David Abel
Globe Staff / April 1, 2008
A renowned pediatrician and bestselling author who served for 14 years as chief of ambulatory pediatrics at Children's Hospital Boston is accused of sexually abusing at least seven boys in his care, according to a civil lawsuit filed in Suffolk Superior Court yesterday.
The lawsuit said Dr. Melvin D. Levine 'sexually assaulted, battered, and abused' a plaintiff when he was a child.
ALLEGATIONS SURFACE
The lawsuit, filed by an unnamed plaintiff who was 8 years old when the alleged abuse began, said Dr. Melvin D. Levine "sexually assaulted, battered, and abused" him between 1980 and 1985.
"Levine, during his treatment sessions, under the guise of performing repeated but unnecessary physical examinations, sexually assaulted John No. 5, including numerous acts of genital fondling, masturbation, and other attempted and threatened acts of assault," the lawsuit asserts.
In a faxed statement, Levine's lawyer, Edward Mahoney of Boston, said the doctor is innocent.
"Dr. Mel Levine has provided pediatric care to more than 15,000 children over 40 years and categorically denies that he has ever been abusive in any way toward any patient," said Mahoney, who questioned the motives of the lawyer filing the suit. "He adamantly denies these claims. Dr. Levine is distressed about the distorted or misinterpreted memories from decades past and questions the motivations."
Levine, 68, who has appeared on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" to promote his books, did not return messages left at his home in Rougement, N.C., where he moved after leaving Children's Hospital.
In a separate statement, officials at Children's Hospital said Levine worked there between 1971 and 1985, specializing in children with developmental and educational issues. "This work led to Dr. Levine developing a national reputation as an expert in these fields," the statement said.
Children's Hospital is also named as a defendant in the lawsuit.
The hospital's statement said it "never had any complaint from any patient or parent of any patient suggesting inappropriate conduct of any nature by Dr. Levine."
It added: "Children's Hospital's most important goal is to protect children's health and promote their well-being. Our staff is trained and experienced in detecting abuse and mistreatment of children. Such behavior, if identified, is treated with the utmost seriousness and addressed immediately."
Levine, who trained as a resident at the hospital in 1965, is now a professor of pediatrics at the University of North Carolina Medical School in Chapel Hill. University officials did not return calls.
He is the author of at least six books, including "A Mind At A Time," which was a New York Times bestseller, and helped found All Kinds of Minds, a nonprofit institute that studies learning.
He studied at Brown University, was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University in England, graduated from Harvard Medical School, and received the C. Anderson Aldrich Award for outstanding contribution to the field of child development in 1995, according to a biography on the All Kinds of Minds website.
"Dr. Levine's groundbreaking framework for understanding why children struggle in school provides a straightforward, practical system for recognizing variations in the way children learn and use their strengths to help them become more successful students," according to the biography.
The lawsuit filed yesterday was not the first against Levine alleging abuse. A federal suit filed in 1988 asserted that between 1978 and 1984 Levine conducted "improper and repeated examinations of the plaintiff's testicles out of the presence of the plaintiff's parents." The lawsuit was dismissed.
In 1993, the Massachusetts Board of Registration in Medicine received a complaint from a former patient of Levine's who said the doctor had fondled his penis and asked him repeatedly about whether he was having wet dreams. That charge was also dismissed.
"The significance of this case is that now we have evidence of seven complaints of sexual abuse over a 17-year period and multiple instances for the people who were abused," said Carmen L. Durso, who is representing five of the alleged victims and held a press conference yesterday at his Boston office. "We need to find out if there are more people and whether they will support the allegations of these people, and we need to find out what Children's Hospital's role was. We don't have answers as to why Levine was able to do this with such ease."
The other alleged victims said Levine abused them when he worked in Boston, when they ranged in age from 5 to 13.
The complaint did not provide details of the abuse alleged in those cases or answer why they waited so long to come forward.
The plaintiff who filed the lawsuit "was unable to recall and to understand" the abuse until February 2006, the complaint said. It says he has been in therapy since.
Durso did not specify the damages his clients are seeking.
Globe Newspaper Company.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2008/05/12/2008-05-12_rabbis_face_food_rap.html
ReplyDeleteRabbis face food rap
By John Marzulli
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Monday, May 12th 2008, 4:00 AM
In a new twist on the old story of schoolyard bullies, two rabbis go on trial Monday on charges they stole the government's lunch money.
Brothers Mordecai and Sroya Sorcher are charged with embezzling money from the feds' breakfast and lunch program for needy students by inflating the number of eligible kids at yeshivas they ran in Brooklyn and Queens.
Even worse, the feds say, the rabbis offered their students warmed-up leftovers donated by a local deli while the nutritious government food was diverted elsewhere.
"The defendants created and submitted fraudulent documents to government bodies in order to generate funds for themselves ... not to feed the students," Assistant Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Daniel Brownell wrote in court papers.
Prosecutors have not said how many students were fictional - or how much money was swindled. The Sorchers received $379,697 in federal lunch subsidies between 1997 and 2001. A government witness is expected to testify that he saw a Sorcher relative loading boxes of government-issued food into the trunk of his car, a well-placed source said.
Mordecai Sorcher was the director and Sroya was the president of Yeshiva Gedolah Academy (grades K to 12) at 2261 Bragg St. in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, with satellite schools on Avenue T and on E. 96th St. in Brooklyn and on Bowne St. in Flushing, Queens.
Defense lawyer Lawrence Stern accused the feds of selective prosecution.
http://wcbstv.com/topstories/vito.fossella.scandal.2.721574.html
ReplyDeleteNEW YORK (CBS) ― The troubles continue to mount for embattled Congressman Vito Fossella. Officials are looking into the Staten Island Republican's jet-setting ways after records showed he took trips to Europe without any other lawmakers present.
A CBS 2 review of Fossella's taxpayer-funded junkets shows that the family-values lawmakers visited an eye-popping 13 countries between Jan. 2002 and Aug. 2004, including several stops in Europe, Bermuda, and Cuba. It's not yet clear how many trips his girlfriend Laura Fay went on with him, but Fossella abruptly stopped his frequent flying about the time that Fay got pregnant with their daughter Natalie, whom he fathered outside of his marriage and unbeknownst to his wife Mary Patricia.
Records further show that Fossella has not taken any trips since around the time that Natalie was born.
In Jan. 2003, Fossella spent nearly $7,000 in taxpayer money for a trip to France.
In Aug. 2004, there was a $7,700 tab for a trip to Italy.
Fossella was the only Congressman on both jaunts. No other lawmakers went, which sources say is unusual. CBS 2 confirmed last week that Fay accompanied Fossella on a trip to Europe, but several other lawmakers were on that trip too. Now officials are reportedly trying to find out if Fay did join him on the other trips.
This comes as Republicans and Democrats alike are waiting to see if the pressure of the scandal forces him to resign or decide not to run for re-election.
As Vito Fosella's new Public Relations man, I have hired Moshe Talansky as Chief of Security and got some duct tape from Rubashkin.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nydailynews.com/news/2008/05/13/2008-05-13_vito_fossella_camps_out_over_garage.html
Disgraced Rep. Vito Fossella is hiding out in a tiny apartment above a garage at his sister's Staten Island house, the Daily News has learned.
"He's staying there," a neighbor said Monday, pointing to the home of Lori Ceciliani, one of the Republican lawmaker's five sisters.
The neighbor said Fossella has been coming and going from his secret hideaway in recent days, ever since admitting he fathered a love child with retired Air Force Col. Laura Fay.
The revelation, which floored his wife and mother of his three other children, came days after Fossella was busted for drunken driving in a Virginia suburb of Washington.
Fossella has tried to lie low at the beige-colored home with a semicircular driveway.
The lights were on at the apartment, which has a separate white staircase. Ceciliani ordered reporters to leave when they tried to knock.
Seconds later, a man with duct tape covering his license plate drove up and threatened to "rip your eyes out" if reporters did not leave the street.
The commander of the 123rd Precinct arrived minutes later to urge reporters not to photograph Fossella relatives.
A spokeswoman for Fossella didn't return calls last night.
Just a couple of miles away, Fossella's wife, Mary Pat, chatted with neighbors and shooed reporters away from the family's neo-Tudor style home on Grandview Terrace.
Several friends dropped by with groceries. The Fossellas' three kids arrived home in the afternoon from school.
Mary Pat Fossella jumped into a neighbor's SUV to run errands, but said nothing.
Virginia prosecutors are playing hardball with Fossella, and set a June 27 trial date at a court hearing yesterday for his drunken-driving bust.
Fossella's double life was exposed after the May 1 bust - in which he had a blood-alcohol level of 0.17, more than twice the legal limit - when he called Fay to bail him out.
If convicted of drunken driving, Fossella faces a mandatory minimum of five days in jail and a $250 fine. The maximum is a year in jail.
Virginia Commonwealth Attorney Randolph Sengel has said he is not going to cut a deal.
"As a general rule, our policy is not to do that," Sengel has said.
We had the courage to come forward because of UOJ and David Fromowitz. The victims are grateful, particularly, to the ongoing support of UOJ.
ReplyDeleteThank you from the bottom of our hearts.
The group from Boston
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080512/NEWS/80512012/1002
ReplyDeleteIn February 2008, a confidential informant identified as "Source 7," who has worked with federal agents in past immigration cases, detailed several incidents of alleged worker abuse at the plant.
The source, who was lawfully employed at the plant, told authorities that a floor supervisor duct-taped the eyes of an illegal Guatemalan employee and struck him with a meat hook. The blow caused no serious injuries.
"Source 7" asked the Guatemalan to report the incident, but the employee said doing so could jeopardize his job.
In another alleged incident, Source 7 said, a floor supervisor identified as a Hasidic Jew pushed another illegal employee because he did not like the way the employee was moving meat.
A plant employee identified as “Source 11” told authorities that he/she was hired without presenting employment documents or filling out any forms. The worker’s first paycheck had a different person’s name on it, which was then cashed at another part of the plant.
Another plant worker told federal officials that undocumented workers were paid $5 an hour for their first few months before receiving a pay increase to $6 per hour. The minimum wage in Iowa is $7.25 an hour.
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080512/NEWS/80512012/1002
ReplyDeleteFederal officials allege that as many as three-fourths of the company's workers at the end of last year were using fraudulent Social Security numbers.
Last November, the search warrant said, ICE agents interviewed a former Agriprocessors supervisor who said some employees were running a methamphetamine lab in the plant and were bringing weapons to work. The supervisor confronted a higher-level manager about the drugs, and shortly after was fired.
The supervisors also described an encounter with the plant’s human resources manager about three separate Social Security cards from different employees with the same number. The human resources manager "laughed when this matter was brought to her attention," the supervisor told federal agents.
http://www.gazetteonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080513/NEWS/515835882/1006/news
ReplyDelete— On May 4, 2006, sources #8, #9 and #10 were arrested in connection with an investigation of the production of a potential explosive device found in a vehicle registered to a resident of Postville. The materials likely came from the Agriprocessors mechanical shop.
http://www.gazetteonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080513/NEWS/515835882/1006/news
ReplyDelete— In 2005, the Iowa DOT audited a Cedar Rapids car dealership that was selling a number of vehicles to an Agriprocessors supervisor. The manager of the unnamed dealership said the supervisor was a "personal friend of theirs," and that they supplied a large volume of cars to the supervisor for resale to people in the Postville area. That year, more than 50 vehicles were sold in that manner. Sales to Postville residents appeared to represent about 90 percent of the dealership's business. The sales violated Iowa law, which requires all dealers to be licensed.
Employees said that supervisor coerced them and others into to buy vehicles from him or they would be fired or not promoted.
— An Iowa Department of Transportation investigator learned from talking with Des Moines County Treasurer's Office personnel that Source #14 was involved in making applications to title and register cars on behalf of people living in Postville. The source said that, more than 200 times, he or she received application information and money and had the registrations and titles sent to various Burlington/West Burlington addresses. Source #14 then arranged to pick up the documents and sent them to the vehicle owners in Postville.
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080512/NEWS/80512042/-1/SPORTS09
ReplyDeleteWhat concerns union officials is that they had alerted state and federal labor officials of allegations that Agriprocessors was exploiting underage workers and was paying them off the books, she said Monday.
Iowa Labor Commissioner Dave Neil confirmed Monday that a state investigation was underway of possible labor law violations at the Agriprocessors plant in Postville. The probe involved alleged violations of wage and child labor laws, he said.
“It is an ongoing investigation, and I can’t really get into the specifics,” Neil said.
Mike Staebell, assistant district director for the U.S. Department of Labor, said, "Yes, I can confirm that we have an open investigation" at Agriprocessors Inc. in Postville. He declined to provide additional details.
ICE spokesman Tim Counts said he had no immediate comment on the union's statement.
David Strudhoff, superintendent of Postville Community Schools, said Monday that school officials were served with a 21-point subpoena in early April from investigators with the Iowa Division of Labor Services seeking the records of Postville middle and high school students.
The subpoena compelled the school district to turn over names of all current students and students at the school between 2005 and 2007, their ages, addresses, dates of birth, telephone numbers and social security numbers. It also, compelled the school district to turn over proof of age, pictures for yearbook photos, passenger lists for all buses, truancy/nonattendance records for the same group and a list of non-graduates from 2005 to 2008.
The subpoena also compelled the school district to turn over a list of all full or part-time bus drivers from 2005 to 2008 and complete school records for 35 students identified only by last name.
In addition, the subpoena compelled the school district to turn over all current work permits for current students and those enrolled between 2005 and 2007. It also sought the employment contracts of Strudhoff and Guidance Counselor Ron Wahl.
Finally, the subpoena compelled the school district to turn over the names of all children working for Wahl at his two apartment buildings which were sold to Agriprocessor CEO, Sholom Rubashkin and all records on Wahl’s school computer or at Postville Community School District that relate to the students and former students of Postville Community Schools and Mr. Wahl’s work with and for Agriprocessor’s Rubashkin and any other entities associated with Agriprocessor’s and Sholom Rubashkin
500 agents from 16 different agencies including the IRS participated in yesterday's raid on Rubashkin. Rubashkin has reopened today on reduced shifts with the few hundred employees that weren't arrested.
ReplyDeleteA spokesman for UOJ declined to say how many UOJ operatives were working deep undercover.
.........and people were wondering how it was possible that the Belsky/Rubashkin truck drivers had THOUSANDS of extra "plumbers" (kosher seals) on their trucks. No ne'emanut is no ne'emanut, PERIOD!
ReplyDeleteSame goes for Belsky - same for the Agudah and aleh gedoilim goilem.!
Economic 'misery' more widespread
ReplyDeleteSome experts argue that true inflation and unemployment -- the components of the economy's 'Misery Index' -- are higher than the government's official figures.
By Chris Isidore, CNNMoney.com senior writer
Last Updated: May 13, 2008: 5:42 PM EDT
Consumers seeing gas prices soar have trouble believing relatively tame government inflation readings. Some critics argue they're right to doubt the numbers.
Inflation's real cost
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Americans are feeling a lot more economic pain than the government's official statistics would lead you to believe, according to a growing number of experts.
They argue that figures on unemployment and inflation are being understated by the government.
Unemployment and inflation are typically added together to come up with a so-called "Misery Index."
The "Misery Index" was often cited during periods of high unemployment and inflation, such as the mid 1970s and late 1970s to early 1980s.
And some fear the economy may be approaching those levels again.
The official numbers produce a current Misery Index of only 9, not far from the low of 6.1 seen in 1998.
But using the estimates on CPI and unemployment from economists skeptical of the government numbers, the Misery Index is actually in the teens. Some worry it could even approach the post-World War II record of 20.6 in 1980.
"We're looking at government numbers that are really out of whack," said Kevin Phillips, author of the book "Bad Money."
No inflation if you don't eat or drive
According to the government's most recent Consumer Price Index, a key inflation reading, consumer prices rose 4% in the 12 months ending in March. The April CPI report will be released Wednesday morning and economists expect no change from March, despite record gas prices.
But Phillips argues that consumer prices are probably up at least 5% and perhaps more than 10%.
Part of the disconnect may be due to the fact that nondurable goods, such as food and gasoline, makes up only 12% of CPI.
In addition, food and energy prices are eliminated from the so-called core CPI, which many economists tend to focus more closely on because they claim food and gas prices are volatile.
But food and energy costs are a part of household budgets that are very important to consumers. And those prices have been skyrocketing: gas prices were up about 25% over the 12 months ending in March while food prices rose 4.5% over the same period.
To that end, nearly half of the respondents of a recent CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll said inflation was the biggest problem they face.
CPI missed the housing bubble...and bust
Another problem with the CPI figures, according to skeptics, is that it doesn't accurately reflect what's going on in the housing market. That's significant because the cost of buying a home has twice the impact on CPI as does the prices of all nondurable goods combined.
The CPI showed only an 11% rise in home ownership costs from 2002 through 2006, a time that the National Association of Realtors reported that existing home prices soared 34%.
The reason for the low CPI reading is because the CPI looks at equivalent rents, rather than home prices. So inflation was understated during this period, according to Phillips. He argues this may have helped feed the housing boom since it kept mortgage rates lower than they should have been.
Now that the housing boom has gone bust, the CPI appears to be missing the declines in home prices as well; it estimates that the cost of owning a home posted a 12-month increase of 2.6% in March.
But because the CPI figure was so far behind tracking the increase in home values, the housing component of CPI still is leading to a lower inflation reading than what it should be, Phillips said.
The inflation 'con job'
The unusual way that housing prices are estimated isn't the only peculiarity of the CPI report. Over the past ten years, there have been other changes in the calculations, particularly for big ticket items.
Cuts to estimated prices for items like electronics and cars that are thought to have improvements in quality year-after-year have lowered the overall CPI. In addition, changes in the way certain products, such as food, are tracked by the government, have also contributed to lower readings than otherwise expected.
Bill Gross, the manager of Pimco Total Return, the nation's largest bond fund, refers to the CPI as a "con job" that deliberately understates the price pressures faced by Americans in order to keep Social Security payments and other government costs pegged to the index unduly low.
In a report about the CPI, he noted that some of the adjustments don't accurately reflect how much consumers pay for goods. Pimco estimates that the changes have shaved more than a percentage point off the CPI.
"Did your new model computer come with a 25% discount from last year's price?" Gross wrote. "Probably not. What is likely is that you paid about the same price for memory improvements you'll never use."
Another flaw with the CPI numbers is that the government now assumes that higher prices for one item will lead consumers to buy more of a substitution item. That may be true. But if people buy fewer steaks and more hamburgers, for example, it's unrealistic to say that inflation isn't a problem, skeptics maintain.
"The government can claim there's no inflation but all they're measuring is a reduced standard of living," argues Peter Schiff, president of Euro Pacific Capital, an investment firm specializing in overseas investments.
With all this in mind, California economist John Williams argues that CPI is understating inflation by at least 3 percentage points and perhaps as much as 7 percentage points. So instead of an annual inflation rate of 4%, the true number could be between 7% and 11%.
Unemployed, but not counted
Finally, there's the unemployment rate. It was at a relatively low 5% in April. But according to Williams' Web site, ShadowStats.com, the actual rate may be between 8% and 12% if you use a more accurate reading of those out of work.
Even the government's own numbers show there are many unemployed people not showing up in the unemployment rate. The official reading does not include 4.8 million people who want to work but haven't found a job, for example.
Many of these people are dropped from the official calculation because they have become so discouraged from looking without success that they haven't looked in the previous four weeks. Simply adding those people to the number of unemployed takes the current unemployment rate to 7.8%.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics, which produces both the CPI and unemployment readings, says changes in both measures were made to more accurately reflect the real world. The BLS also says the changes have resulted in changes of less than 1% for each measure.
Still, the Labor Department's own broadest measure of unemployment, which includes as jobless those working part-time jobs because they can't find full-time positions as well as some discouraged job seekers, puts the unemployment rate at 9.2% in April, the highest level for that reading in more than three years.
So if you take that number and add that to the 7% that Williams thinks is a more likely annual inflation rate, you're looking at a "Misery Index" of 16.2, much worse than the 9 you get from the official numbers.
And while that may seem a bit high, it's probably a more accurate gauge of how bad the economy is for many Americans.
Me-Knock'Em Got-the-Knack, OU Kash Pres. and nitrous wise-mandel are keeping their Rubashkin approval seals in place. Why? You guys also on the take?
ReplyDeleteYou peeps are next in line for a visit from the Feds. What did you know about the illegal aliens working in the plant and when did you know it? Aiding and abetting illegal employment practices is a Fed crime.
The Sorchers building on Ave T is called the Rabbi London yeshiva. How are they connected to the Rabbi London around the corner from there who had his building on Ocean Ave seized by the Feds for fraud?
ReplyDeleteAnonymous rape tests are going nationwide
ReplyDeleteBy KRISTEN WYATT – 4 hours ago
ELKTON, Md. (AP) — Starting next year across the country, rape victims too afraid or too ashamed to go to police can undergo an emergency-room forensic rape exam, and the evidence gathered will be kept on file in a sealed envelope in case they decide to press charges.
Rubashkin: No Shortage Of Supply, Due To Raid
ReplyDeleteNo problem, they just need to print more "glatt kosher" labels.
FBI warns of growing fraud in slumping housing market
ReplyDeleteAssociated Press - May 13, 2008 6:23 PM ET
WASHINGTON (AP) - The FBI says cases of mortgage fraud jumped by more than 30% in the fiscal year that ended last September. The bureau says there were more than 46,000 cases of suspected mortgage fraud from October 2006 through September 2007 at a cost of more than $813 million.
There have already been 33,000 such cases in just the first half of fiscal 2008.
Common types of mortgage fraud are misrepresentation of income or assets, forged documents, misrepresentation of a borrowers' intent to occupy a property and inflated appraisals.
Assistant director Kenneth Kaiser calls the millions in reported losses "just the tip of the iceberg" in actual financial damage suffered by fraud victims.
The FBI has opened more than 1,300 mortgage-fraud cases along with 19 corporate investigations linked to the subprime lending crisis.
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080512/NEWS/80512045/-1/SPORTS0806
ReplyDeleteTracy Marcov, who lives in nearby Clermont, came down to the plant to watch the raid. Marcov, 20, said she works at a small hotel owned by Agriprocessors and used mainly by out-of-town rabbis. She worried that her job might be at risk if the plant closes or slows down. “This will hurt whole the community,” she said.
http://www.kcrg.com/news/local/18861684.html
ReplyDeleteOfficials say that those detained are from four countries: Guatemala, Mexico, Israel and Ukraine.
Officials say they had 697 warrants, and with only 390 arrests, that leaves over 300 people unaccounted for. They say they are not going door-to-door looking for those people.
On Tuesday, officials made no comment about legal action against managers or owners of the plant.
There were two injuries reported during the raid. One man hurt his leg while fleeing from officials. He was treated and is still in custody. An agent also hurt his leg in a stairwell.
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/gallery?Site=D2&Date=20080512&Category=NEWS&ArtNo=512001&Ref=PH&Params=Itemnr=7
ReplyDeleteBelsky should be a passenger on this bus, not the driver.
http://www.nsopr.gov/main_frameset.cfm?pageid=16&ouid=aHR0cDovL2NyaW1pbmFsanVzdGljZS5zdGF0ZS5ueS51cy9jZ2kvaW50ZXJuZXQvbnNvci9mb3J0ZWNnaT9zZXJ2aWNlTmFtZT1XZWJOU09SJnRlbXBsYXRlTmFtZT1kZXRhaWwuaHRtJnJlcXVlc3RpbmdIYW5kbGVyPVdlYk5TT1JEZXRhaWxIYW5kbGVyJklEPTU1NDAzMTcz
ReplyDeleteROTHSTEIN DANIEL Height: 5'11"
Weight: 180
DOB: Feb 21, 1949 Hair: Brown
Sex: Male Eyes: Hazel
Risk Level: 2
2 WEBSTER AVE 3H
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/gallery?Site=D2&Date=20080512&Category=NEWS&ArtNo=512001&Ref=PH&Params=Itemnr=28
ReplyDeleteImmigration and Customs Enforcement public affairs officeer Harold Ort answers questions on Monday from students who attend Yeshiva of Northeast Iowa, an orthodox Jewish high school in Postville. The boys gathered across the street from Agriprocessors, curious about what was taking place.
http://www.nsopr.gov/main_frameset.cfm?pageid=16&ouid=aHR0cDovL3d3dy5pc3Auc3RhdGUuaWwudXMvc29yL29mZmVuZGVyZGV0YWlscy5jZm0/U09SSUQ9RTAyQTA2ODEmTlNEPTE7
ReplyDeleteGARY EDELMAN
AGGRAVATED CRIMINAL SEXUAL ABUSE/VICTIM 13-16
HOWARD MOSES LICHTENSTEIN
(father in law of Rabbi Ross from ORA)
INDECENT SOLICITATION OF A CHILD
http://www.gazetteonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080513/NEWS/785656269/1006/news
ReplyDeleteThis statement was released today by Agriprocessors in Posville:
"Yesterday Agriprocessors was the subject of a worksite enforcement action by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other agencies. Government reports indicate that over 300 individuals were arrested.
"Our company takes the immigration laws seriously. We cooperated with the government in the enforcement action. We intend to continue to cooperate with the government in its investigation. Agriprocessors will also inquire further into the circumstances that led to today's events.
"We extend our heartfelt sympathies to the families whose lives were disrupted and wish them the best.
"We are deeply committed to meeting the needs of all of our customers and are operating again today."
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080513/NEWS/80513024/1001
ReplyDeleteOne detainee agreed to speak to the Des Moines Register, but declined to be identified because of fear of recrimination by ICE.
She will face charges of being in the country illegally and having false identification. She will likely be deported, but was returned to Postville from a holding area in Waterloo for medical reasons.
Three weeks ago, the woman said she was taken to a second-floor office in Agriprocessor and told by a supervisor to “change her papers” to make them look more realistic.
Inside the meatpacking plant on Monday morning, workers heard the agents before they saw them.
The woman said a call came over the loudspeaker, announcing that ICE was in the plant. Many in the plant tried to hide. Some ran.
“No one had a clue” a raid was coming, she said, despite rumors during the weekend that were discussed at an immigration-rights advocates’ meeting in Waterloo.
“Everyone scampered, everyone tried to get away,” she said.
ICE agents with pistols called for those hiding to come out. “Once they knew they couldn’t get away, they came down from their hiding places,” she said in Spanish.
Her department, poultry, was the farthest location in the plant from the agents, she said.
The agents grouped those with identification from those without it, then put the second group in single-file lines.
They were frisked, told to remove any sweaters or heavy garments and shackled – handcuffs were placed on their wrists and attached to their waists, and their feet were cuffed as well.
They were put on a bus, she said, then driven to Waterloo.
When they got off, they were frisked again. The shackles were removed. They were told to take off their shoes.
“There was no mistreatment,” she said. “They told us to sit. We sat.”
She was instructed to fill out paperwork that detailed her date of birth and country of origin. She is from Guatemala but said she told investigators that she was from Mexico.
When she’s deported, she said she would rather be taken to Mexico, where it will be easier to reenter America.
She was put in a building with other women, she said, but could not identify the building. There were cots set up inside, and the group she was with was told to go to sleep.
Hours later, she told nurses she wasn’t feeling well. They checked her and instructed agents to return her to Postville. She was driven by a male and female agent in a white van back to town, but when they asked where she lived, she said she told them to take her to St. Bridget’s Catholic Church.
She said she was afraid of leading ICE agents to her house.
She rang the doorbell at the church again and again. Father Paul Ouderkirk thought a fellow pastor had locked himself out of the house.
Now, the woman said she’s worried for her children in Guatemala. The raid means she won’t make money this week, and can’t send any back, she said.
Ouderkirk said he toured the plant in 2002, one of seven he’s toured nationwide.
“It was one of the dirtiest plants I’ve been in,” Ouderkirk said.
Ouderkirk said he toured all sections of the plant, but was denied access when a new section was built.
“The pace was fast,” Ouderkirk said. “They had no place where people could sit down and eat, only a room about the size of (a 15 ft. by 15 ft. area) where they crowded in.”
Many of the immigrants detained in Postville on Monday came from small, rural towns in Mexico or Guatemala, Ouderkirk said, arriving in small groups with relatives or friends.
“It’s like any grapevine,” he said. “They hear it and they come.”
http://www.kcrg.com/news/local/18906174.html
ReplyDeleteBy Josh Hinkle, Anchor/Reporter
May 13, 2008
POSTVILLE - Postville was already a small town of 2,300 before the raid. Now city officials say many people are fleeing in fear, not to mention the near 400 plant workers detained.
More than a third of the workers at the city's largest business are gone. Without those workers many fear Agriprocessors will shut down. If that happens, the mayor says 95% of the shops here will dry up. Petrona Garcia's convenience store is the only Hispanic business in town with customers the day after the raid.
"The shops are closed because there are no people in Postville at all,"
City officials tell me most fled or hid after the raid at Postville's largest employer. Agriprocessors lost nearly 400 workers.
I spoke briefly with the CEO of OU Kosher, Rabbi Menachem Genack. I asked him the following question:
ReplyDeleteShmarya Rosenberg: "Why don't you tell me in a nutshell why the business practices of a company you supervise and certify should not enter into, or do not enter into, whether the food they produce is kosher or not? Whether you leave your hechsher on or not?"
Rabbi Genack: "It does fall into the purview of, not of whether it is kosher or not, but whether we should be supervising it. And what I said many times is that this, these areas – immigration, you know, worker rights – the whole plethora of them, that we're going to follow the lead of the Federal government who has authority in this. And, you know, we'll see what happens and we will do – and we will see where the facts lead us. Obviously, if there if they are held culpable on a corporate level then we will respond on that basis."
Rabbi Genack had to take another call, and was unable to take a followup question.
http://www.jewishpress.com/UploadedImages/stdImage/Lecture%20Ad,%20Goldwasser%20Horowitz%2010%20x%2014,%20color.pdf
ReplyDeleteLet me instruct your children on how to be good little perpetrators of forgery.
i operate a dairy farm outside of postville and have a hispanic employee that has friends that worker at agri and he told me some stories that would make you quessy if you at food that came from agri
ReplyDeleteone for instance is that they are told to relabel packages of meat if have been in the freezer to long
Rabbi Yisroel Salanter said very clearly that food obtained in an unethical and inhumane fashion is not kosher - period. Genack should go back to yeshiva.
ReplyDeleteEven though Rubashkin was open for business yesterday, one day after the largest immigration raid in the history of the United States, the effects of the raid appear devastating.
ReplyDeleteAccording to the Cedar Rapids Gazette:
http://www.gazetteonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080514/NEWS/717848793/1006/news
…[Postville schools Superintendent Dave Strudthoff] said 90 percent of the Latinos at Postville High School were not in class Tuesday. He did not have the number of students that represented.
Interestingly, the number of Latino students not in school dropped dramatically as their ages dropped:
One-third of the Latino children in kindergarten through eighth grade were not in class, approximately 150 students.…
Meanwhile, KTTC reports on the economic impact for Postville itself:
http://www.kttc.com/News/index.php?ID=24733
… Agriprocessors, Postville may not survive.
Robert Penrod, Postville Mayor, says, "It leaves basically 2/3 of the housing empty. It will leave basically 95-percent of the downtown empty."…
The Cedar Rapids Gazette also reports on the impact on the Orthodox and kosher-keeping Jewish community:
Kosher consumers are bracing for shortages after Monday's immigration raid at the Postville plant of Agriprocessors Inc.
"When I saw that, I went, 'Oh my goodness,'" said Arlene Mathes-Scharf, a Sharon, Mass., food scientist whose Web site (www.kashrut.com) tracks recalls and follows trends in the kosher market. "They're the largest supplier of kosher beef in the country. If their production is down, it will definitely have an effect on prices and supply. Around here, the meat I can get in my supermarket is from them."
Officials said the plant was operating on Tuesday, though on a limited schedule.
The Agriprocessors market "is roughly 60 percent of all (kosher) meat, 40 percent of all poultry," added Menachem Lubinsky, editor of the trade journal Kosher Today. "Obviously, any disruption would be very damaging."
Meat that doesn't meet kosher standards is sold under Agriprocessors' Iowa Best Beef Brand. In 2003, company officials said non-kosher meat made up 70 percent of Agriprocessors' sales.…
"It has to have an effect because I just don't think there's a lot of excess capacity in the kosher meat market," said Mathes-Scharf. "When I get to my local supermarket, I'll see if I can get any meat."…
BTW, Mathes-Scharf's website has steadfastly refused to print bad news about Agriprocessors, in effect covering for Rubashkin during various scandals.
I searched the site for any mention of Agriprocessors. This is what I found:
The following revised kashrus notice is from Agriprocessors and the OU and posted on April 17, 2008.
Products with the Rubashkin’s, Aaron’s, and Supreme Kosher are produced under the joint supervision of Rabbi M. M. Weissmandl and the OU. Products with Supreme Kosher label follow both Rabbi Weissmandl and OU standards. Products bearing only the OU follow all OU standards, and Rabbi Weissmandl ensures that those standards are followed.
The following Kashrus Notice is from KAJ on January 1, 2008.
The Rabbinate of K'hal Adath Jeshurun ("KAJ") has decided to remove its supervision of all Agriprocessors, Inc. (Rubashkin, Aaron's Best) facilities and stores, effective as of April 16, 2008. This decision was made in October and company was notified. The decision was confirmed by a letter, which was sent to the company on Friday. Letter linked to here.
Ed. note: Agriprocessors continues to be certified by the Orthodox Union and Rabbi Menachem Meir Weissmandl shlit"a, the Rav of Nitra of Monsey.
I got the same results for "Rubashkin" and for "Aaron's Best."
You'd never know Rubashkin had been (and still may be for all we really know) ripping the throats out of live animals with a meat hook.
And clearly, whatever pain and suffering Rubashkin's workers suffer is not her concern.
I think this is a good example of what I see as theological bankruptcy.
Nothing explains Rubashkin's supporters better than that.
If Shmarya believes Genack really had another phone call to get to, I have a bridge to sell him.
ReplyDeleteMay 14 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. foreclosure filings climbed 65 percent and bank seizures more than doubled in April from a year earlier as rates on adjustable mortgages increased and vacated homes added to a glut of unsold homes, RealtyTrac Inc. said.
ReplyDeleteMore than 243,300 properties, or one in every 519 households, were in some stage of foreclosure, the highest monthly total since RealtyTrac, a seller of default data, began statistics in January 2005. Nevada, California and Florida had the highest rates. Filings rose 4 percent from March.
Properties in foreclosure ``contribute to already bloated inventories of homes for sale, and put downward pressure on home values,'' RealtyTrac Chief Executive Officer James Saccacio said today in a statement.
The collapse of the U.S. housing market, the worst since the Great Depression, is contributing to the economic slowdown and may push the economy into a recession. Median prices for a single- family home fell 7.7 percent in the first quarter, the biggest drop in 29 years, the National Association of Realtors reported yesterday. There were 4.06 million U.S. homes for sale at the end of March, 40,000 more than the prior month, the Realtors association said in an April 22 report.
``Inventory levels have soared to unprecedented levels'' Brian Fabbri, chief North American economist for BNP Paribas, said in an interview. ``Builders and homeowners have to lower their prices significantly to sell that inventory out.''
Bank Seizures
Bank repossessions jumped 145 percent in April from a year earlier to 54,574, according to Irvine, California-based RealtyTrac. The company has database of more than 1.5 million properties and monitors foreclosure filings including defaults notices, auction sale notices and bank seizures.
Banks will seize about 60,000 properties a month through December, when about 1 million U.S. homes, or a quarter of all homes for sale, may be bank-owned, Rick Sharga, RealtyTrac's executive vice president of marketing, said in an interview.
``These are the properties that are causing the bloat in the inventory,'' he said.
Delinquencies on subprime mortgages will continue to rise and defaults on prime loans also may accelerate as people lose their jobs in a slowing economy, Fabbri said. About $460 billion of adjustable-rate loans were scheduled to reset this year, according to New York-based analysts at Citigroup Inc.
Foreclosures are mounting even as the Bush Administration and Congress propose relief for homeowners. The Democrat-led U.S. House of Representatives approved a $300 billion plan May 8 that would allow the government to insure refinanced mortgages. Acting Housing and Urban Development Secretary Roy Bernardi said the next day he was willing to compromise on the proposal after Republican President George W. Bush threatened to veto it.
Foreclosure filings in New York were up 39 percent from a year ago and up 12 percent from March. The state ranked 29th with 5,696 filings.
In New Jersey, foreclosure filings ranked 15th at 5,143, up 65 percent from a year ago and up 15 percent from March.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3541295,00.html
ReplyDeleteState Prosecutor Moshe Lador told the court that Talansky "has expressed his concern to a police officer that Olmert might send someone to hurt him."
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1209627051408&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is trying to prevent New York Jewish businessman Morris Talansky from being questioned in the investigation of alleged illegal payments to the prime minister.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/982410.html
ReplyDeleteProf. Jonathan Halevy, the director general of Jerusalem's Shaare Zedek Medical Center, received close to $100,000 in 2004 from the American Committee for Shaare Zedek for his fund-raising activities. Such compensation would not be allowed at a state hospital, but Shaare Zedek is private.
Morris Talansky, who is a key witness in the latest investigation concerning Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, is best known for his fund-raising efforts for the hospital. Talansky was paid for his efforts, and it turns out he was not the only one. The American Committee for Shaare Zedek is responsible for raising contributions for the hospital in the U.S., and Talansky was its executive director at the end of the 1990s, and later served as a consultant to the committee. Halevy was also paid as a "consultant."
In 2004, Talansky was paid $90,000 for his fund-raising work, according to the group's annual report to the IRS.
http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Top_News/2008/05/12/most_israelis_say_olmert_should_resign/8614/
ReplyDeleteMost Israelis say Olmert should resign
Published: May 12, 2008
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3542425,00.html
ReplyDeleteBusinessman Morris Talansky was summoned to the National Fraud Unit's headquarters for questioning on Monday afternoon in relation to his suspected involvement in the bribery affair Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has recently been implicated in.
Police investigators said Talansky was being questioned under caution. At present time he is suspected of having raised the funds which were subsequently transferred to Olmert through illegal channels.
Court officials involved in the investigation against Olmert said they are likely to request Talansky be required to remain in Israel for an undetermined period of time. Olmert's attorneys have already said they will appeal the demand to have Talansky give an early testimony, however no appeal has been filed as of yet to the High Court.
Talansky requested he be allowed to testify and then immediately leave the country to attend to his wife, who is seriously ill, in the United States. Despite his request, court officials told Ynet on Monday night that, if necessary, "the hold-departure order delaying Talansky’s exit from Israel will be extended beyond Wednesday.”
Meanwhile on Monday, police officers raided the officers of the Jerusalem Municipality and confiscated various documents. Five months earlier police searched several municipal offices, including the Jerusalem Municipality, in connection to other investigations against Olmert.
Several hours prior to the second round of interrogation, a former senior police figure, Yaakov Borovsky, who is familiar with the details of corruption charges against Olmert, said the current affair would likely result in an indictment against the prime minister.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/983209.html
ReplyDeleteThe focus of the investigation of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert continued yesterday to focus on the search for any quid pro quo that Olmert might have provided to U.S. businessman Morris Talansky in exchange for the hundreds of thousands of dollars he is suspected of giving to Olmert.
Police questioned billionaire U.S. businessmen Sheldon Adelson and S. Daniel Abraham in connection with the investigation. Both men are in Israel to attend the Presidential Conference.
Real estate tycoon Adelson provided a sworn statement to detectives yesterday.
Police believe that Olmert wrote to him and at least one other major hotel owner and asked them to buy minibar refrigerators for their properties made by a company in which Talansky had a stake at the time.
Talansky himself is thought to be behind the letter, which did not result in purchase orders.
Sources said that Adelson, who owns the free Israeli daily Yisrael Hayom and is close to former prime minister and Likud Chairman Benjamin Netanyahu, was hard put to remember the letter and Olmert's request.
On Monday, police detectives waited for Abraham outside his Jerusalem hotel and questioned him about his relationship with Olmert and money he allegedly transferred to the prime minister years ago. In January 2004, Abraham purchased Olmert's former home on Kaf Tet Benovember Street in Jerusalem. Abraham made his fortune as a founder of Slim Fast, and in 1989 he founded the Center for Middle East Peace & Economic Cooperation, which he bankrolls.
Israeli law-enforcement authorities yesterday confirmed that both Adelson and Abraham were questioned by police in connection with the investigation but emphasized that they are not suspects and that their statements were intended to establish Olmert's pattern of behavior and that he acted in Talansky's favor.
Earlier yesterday, detectives from the police's National Fraud Unit raided offices at the Trade and Industry Ministry in their widening search for a paper trail showing the alleged money trail between Talansky and Olmert. Police did not raid the minister's office, as they did in a previous search in a different Olmert investigation, focusing instead on the ministry's correspondence archive.
In addition to carting away documents, detectives yesterday attempted to restore data from ministry computers. Olmert headed the ministry from 2003 to 2006, before he became prime minister.
On Monday, the police searched Jerusalem municipal offices looking for evidence of alleged compensation provided by Olmert to Talansky in exchange for cash sums Olmert is suspected of receiving from Talansky during Olmert's 10-year tenure as the capital's mayor. One suspicion is that Olmert ordered the installation of speed bumps on the street where Talansky's children and grandchildren live after the businessman-philanthropist asked him to intervene.
No new date has been set for further questioning of Olmert under caution. Detectives want to complete their questioning of various figures before renewing their interviews with the prime minister. In addition, law-enforcement authorities are also waiting to see when Talansky is to be questioned in district court. Police sources say that if Olmert's attorneys can keep Talansky from giving preliminary evidence in the affair, the detectives will delay questioning Olmert again for as long as possible.
But if Talansky ends up giving evidence in the next several days, the police are expected to get Olmert's version of events beforehand to "lock" him into a narrative before Talansky testifies - in open court - and before Olmert's lawyers have a chance to review the investigative material in preparation for their cross-examination of Talansky in court.
The police are also preparing to conduct confrontations between former Olmert bureau head Shula Zaken and attorney Uri Messer, and between Talansky and Olmert, possibly in the near future.
The state yesterday asked the Jerusalem District Court to take a statement from Talansky as soon as possible, in light of the fact that the order preventing Talansky from leaving the country expires on May 21.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/983001.html
ReplyDeleteEinstein: Nothing 'chosen' about the Jews, Bible 'childish' legends
By Bradley Burston, Haaretz Correspondent
What do they want with S. Daniel Abraham.? They should stop harassing my mishpoche.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.gazetteonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080514/NEWS/928629335/1006/news
ReplyDeleteThe Agriprocessors market "is roughly 60 percent of all (kosher) meat, 40 percent of all poultry," added Menachem Lubinsky, editor of the trade journal Kosher Today. "Obviously, any disruption would be very damaging."
Agriprocessors is also the only American plant certified to sell in Israel, but Lubinsky wasn't sure the firm does business there.
I have foot and mouth disease and will get mad cow syndrome if I don't get paid by Rubashkin under the table.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.gazetteonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080514/NEWS/928629335/1006/news
ReplyDeleteAugust 2007 — After a brawl at a local bar moves to a private residence where several people are injured, about 45 residents ask city leaders to stop what they say is escalating violence among the immigrant population.
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080514/NEWS01/805140365
ReplyDeleteAgriprocessors Inc. has a history of noncompliance with state and federal regulations related to food safety, pollution and workplace safety at its Postville facility, government records show. Here are some actions government regulators have taken in the past 2years:
FEBRUARY 2006: U.S. Department of Labor fines the company $2,000 for a serious workplace-safety violation. The fine is later reduced to $1,000. Two weeks later, the plant is fined $2,500 for a serious worker-safety violation involving machinery. That fine is later reduced to $1,250.
MARCH 2006: Agriprocessors is cited for worker-safety violations related to respiratory protection. No fine is imposed.
AUGUST 2006: The company agrees to pay $603,086 to settle a complaint by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Federal prosecutors had accused the owners of discharging pollutants into Postville's city water treatment system.
SEPTEMBER 2006: The U.S. Department of Agriculture issues a "letter of warning" to the plant, based on failure to meet minimum requirements for sanitary conditions. Rodents had been seen in offices, and other unsanitary conditions were noted outside the plant. The letter noted multiple instances of unsanitary conditions that had gone uncorrected over the previous 90 days.
DECEMBER 2006: USDA inspectors find fecal contamination of chickens being processed. In one case, an inspector has to intervene three times to correct the problem. A day later, an inspector finds that about half the chickens he observes being processed are contaminated with feces and bile. A week later, inspectors note that at least 70 percent of the chickens are contaminated with feces. Two days later, inspectors report finding two pallets of beef that had "a rancid smell and (were) slimy to the touch." Hydraulic oil is seen dripping from an overhead motor onto raw chickens being processed. A few days later, inspectors see the same problem.
JANUARY 2007: USDA inspectors find "a large amount of fecal and bile contamination" on chickens being processed. Three areas are deemed "out of compliance, with fecal material sprayed everywhere around them." An inspector halts the meat-processing line and raises the issue with a worker who wanted to restart the line without taking corrective action.
JANUARY 2007: The USDA announces that Agriprocessors is recalling 2,700 pounds of frankfurters because of possible underprocessing.
JULY 2007: The USDA announces that Agriprocessors is recalling 35,860 pounds of frozen beef and chicken products because they may contain egg albumen, a known allergen, which is not declared on the label.
MARCH 2008: The Iowa Division of Labor Services cites Agriprocessors for 39 violations of workplace safety rules and proposes a $182,000 fine. The sanctions are based on inspections that took place in October 2007 and February 2008. Inspectors say the violations relate to hazardous chemicals and inadequate emergency response plans. Federal officials put the case "on hold," according to Kerry Koonce of Iowa Workforce Development. As of Tuesday, the matter remained unresolved.
http://www.gazetteonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080514/NEWS/934264013/1006/news
ReplyDeletePOSTVILLE - Of all the people predicting economic trouble for this northeast Iowa city in the wake of Monday's immigration raid, perhaps none is a more qualified predictor than Gabay Menahem.
He owns and manages 130 properties in town through his company, Gal Investments Ltd.
The vacancy rates on those properties, he said, went from 5 percent to 85 percent — overnight.
Federal authorities have arrested 390 employees at Agriprocessors, a kosher meatpacking plant in Postville, and have warrants to arrest 307 more, many of whom either are taking refuge in St. Bridget's Church or have fled.
Chaim Abrahams, a spokesman for Agriprocessors, provided a short statement and directed further questions to Jim Fallon, who works for a public relations firm in Kansas City, Mo., that specializes in food and agriculture.
Fallon said the plant is "operating at some capacity."
Menahem, who came to Postville four or five years ago, said he will have to lay off his company's seven employees. Many of his homes will be vacant indefinitely, he said, and selling them will be difficult unless Agriprocessors quickly replenishes its roughly 800-person work force.
Business and property owners in Postville are hoping Agriprocessors will be anchored in town by its heavy investments in infrastructure. The company is continually expanding and is building a rendering plant adjacent to the packing plant to process its own waste, Menahem said. The company also has about a dozen chicken-growing facilities around Postville.
"I have to be optimistic. This is the town I've invested all my money in," said Trevor Seibert, a property owner who lost tenants in three of his units after the raid. "If I wasn't (optimistic), I would have already jumped off one of my buildings this morning."
Though Menahem does not dispute that many workers in Postville were illegal immigrants, he argued that immigration authorities have not considered the big picture.
"Yes, you're right," he said. "But it's not justice."
I believe that Barry Goldstein is a long-time cohort of The Energizer Rabbi -- Back in the seventies, he ran a fraudulent food program vendor under the name "Luigi Goldstein" to which the Energizer Rabbi directed much of "his" free-food business. The truly amazing thing is that, given their history, anyone with responsibility for federal funds has allowed either of these characters near federal money, let alone $44 million in federal money.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.newsday.com/services/newspaper/printedition/wednesday/news/ny-nyrabb145684999may14,0,5838256.story
ReplyDeleteRabbis plead guilty to taking school lunch money
ANTHONY M. DESTEFANO
May 14, 2008
Two ordained Brooklyn rabbis avoided a federal fraud trial yesterday by pleading guilty to embezzling $75,000 from a school lunch program.
Mordechai Abraham Sorcher, 51, and his brother, Sroya Sorcher, 47, told Federal Judge Frederic Block that they had filed false claims for reimbursement for school meals that weren't served.
The Sorchers, who face up to a year in prison under federal sentencing guidelines, were on the verge of going to trial. A jury had already been selected and was waiting for opening statements when prosecutors and defense attorneys hammered out a plea deal.
According to a revised indictment, the Sorcher brothers operated the Yeshiva Gedolah Academy, which offered instruction for kindergarten through grade 12 at four locations in Brooklyn and Queens. From May 1997 until July 2001, the brothers filed numerous false reimbursement claims for meals under the federal program that funds meals for low-income families.
The rabbis told Block that they still have congregations in the Sheepshead Bay area. (Beth Aaron on Bragg St near Ave V)
I suspect the Agudah is working behind the scenes in Washington to get the Feds to lay off Rubashkin. Only Charlie Hynes would decline to prosecute the employer of 800 illegal aliens.
ReplyDeleteAs meat supplies dwindle there is going to be a lot more incentive for kosher meat fraud. A lot of Finkel jrs will pop up.
"I suspect the Agudah is working behind the scenes in Washington to get the Feds to lay off Rubashkin."
ReplyDeleteNo comment as per Avi Shafran.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/14/business/worldbusiness/14tax.html
ReplyDeleteSome of the secrets of Switzerland’s biggest bank were put on display on Tuesday as federal authorities indicted a former UBS banker on charges of helping a wealthy American real estate developer evade taxes.
The one-count conspiracy indictment, unsealed in federal court, accuses the former banker, Bradley Birkenfeld, of helping the developer evade taxes on $200 million held in bank accounts in Switzerland and Liechtenstein. The indictment also names as a co-conspirator Mario Staggl, an executive at a trust company in Liechtenstein, a major European tax haven.
An official briefed on the investigation identified the developer as Igor Olenicoff, the billionaire founder of Olen Properties. A lawyer for Mr. Olenicoff, Edward M. Robbins Jr., declined to comment, as did Mr. Olenicoff when contacted by e-mail.
The indictment is part of a widening federal investigation into whether UBS, one of the world’s largest money managers for the wealthy, helped certain clients evade taxes, and it suggests that American authorities are stepping up scrutiny of offshore tax transactions. The inquiry focuses on UBS’s private bank based in Zurich, which does much of its business through Liechtenstein.
Martin Liechti, a top private banker at UBS, recently was detained briefly by federal authorities in Florida as a material witness in the investigation.
Mr. Birkenfeld, 43, a citizen of the United States, was the director of important clients for UBS in Geneva from 2002 to 2006, and is a partner and chairman at Union Charter, which caters to wealthy investors through offices in Geneva, Dubai and Hong Kong. Mr. Staggl, also 43, is a co-founder of the New Haven Trust Company in Liechtenstein, which specializes in tax planning.
Mr. Birkenfeld made an initial appearance on Tuesday in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida in Fort Lauderdale. Mr. Staggl, who is a citizen of Liechtenstein, remains at large and did not respond to e-mail messages.
According to the indictment, the two men created fictitious trusts and bogus corporations to conceal the ownership and control of offshore assets. They also advised clients to destroy bank records and helped them file false tax returns, the indictment said.
The two men and others made several trips to the United States to pitch tax plans that were intended to conceal American bank clients’ ownership of accounts in a Swiss bank, the indictment said.
The plans enabled UBS to avoid its obligations to disclose certain income information to the I.R.S., the indictment said, while also evading certain American tax requirements. The cornerstone to the defendants’ pitch was that Swiss and Liechtenstein bank secrecy was impenetrable, the indictment said.
UBS declined to comment on the charges.
In December, Mr. Olenicoff pleaded guilty to tax evasion and to lying on his tax returns, and agreed to pay back taxes totaling $52 million. Mr. Olenicoff, who was born in Russia and emigrated to the United States decades ago, is on the Forbes 400 list of wealthiest people, with an estimated net worth of $1.7 billion.
The developments come at a difficult time for UBS, which has been hit by hard by the credit crisis. The bank has suffered write-downs of about $38 billion since last summer, leading to the departure of a chief executive, a chairman and other senior managers.
During the housing boom, everyone thought that housing was a great investment. Many people bought under the assumption that home prices go up, not down. The result of this madness is the biggest foreclosure crisis in the history of the United States.
ReplyDeleteThe reality is that housing is not an investment. It's shelter. That is all housing has ever been. Self-serving organizations like the National Association of Realtors like to tell people that buying a home is a good way to build long-term wealth, but this statement couldn't be further from the truth.
Although home prices can go up (and down), the rate of appreciation on housing does not surpass inflation levels over the long-term. Between 1890 and 2004, the real return on housing was a pathetic 0.4 percent per year over the last 100 years, according to Robert Shiller, a housing expert and Yale economist.
Real estate investments aren't that much better over the short-term. The gain in new home prices over the last 20 years has been a mere fraction of the Dow's gain. The average person investing in stocks between 1987 and 2007 would have made more money than the average person who bought a new home in 1987.
http://money.cnn.com/2008/05/14/news/economy/cpi/index.htm
ReplyDeleteJump in food prices biggest in 18 years
Just wait until we get our hands on Belsky. He told us our jobs are safe. Soon there won't even be chicken poop to deliver.
ReplyDeleteNEW YORK (Reuters) - A federal judge on Friday sentenced a New York man to 88 months in prison for his role in a foreign currency exchange scheme that cost investors about $6.5 million.
ReplyDeleteU.S. District Judge Victor Marrero also ordered Victor Altman to pay $1.23 million in restitution and forfeit another $1.23 million, prosecutors said in a statement.
Altman was sentenced for his role in helping run foreign exchange firm Holston, Young, Parker & Associates, a boiler room scheme where staff used high pressure techniques and lies to cheat investors, prosecutors said.
They said Altman and others lied about the use of invested funds and used false names when they telephoned potential investors. They then misrepresented their work history and the firm's success rate, prosecutors said.
Altman, 39, who lives in Brooklyn, New York, previously pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire and mail fraud, and one count of wire fraud in the case.
Sharpton owes nearly $1.5 million in taxes, other penalties
ReplyDeleteBy DAVID B. CARUSO
The Associated Press
NEW YORK — Big corporations give him money. Presidential candidates seek his endorsement. He has influential friends in Congress and the governor's mansion.
The Rev. Al Sharpton, 53, has emerged during the past decade as perhaps the nation's most prominent civil-rights leader, a status demonstrated again this week when he led protests against police brutality that briefly shut down six of Manhattan's major bridges and tunnels.
But government records indicate he and his business entities owe nearly $1.5 million in overdue taxes and associated penalties.
The U.S. attorney is investigating his nonprofit group, a probe that Sharpton brushes off as the kind of annoyance civil-rights figures have come to expect from the government.
"Whatever retaliation they do on me, we never stop," he said. "I think that that is why they try to intimidate us."
In the past year, Sharpton's lawyers and the employees of his nonprofit group, the National Action Network, have been negotiating with the federal government over the size of his debt, which they dispute. The group also has been trying to pay off tens of thousands of dollars it owes for failing to properly maintain workers' compensation and unemployment insurance.
Charlie King, the organization's interim executive director, said Sharpton and the group were unprepared for their rise in stature in recent years and had trouble dealing with big jumps in donations and income.
"The infrastructure was trying to keep up with that pace, and it was not a perfect fit," he said Friday. "The National Action Network may not have been perfect, but nothing was going on that was untoward."
King said the organization has new accountants and a new administrative team, and the group recently filed long-overdue tax returns.
Sharpton's own debts include $365,558 owed in New York City income tax and $931,397 in unpaid federal income tax, according to a lien filed by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) last spring. His for-profit company, Rev. Al Communications, owes the state an additional $175,962 in delinquent taxes.
As for Sharpton's personal tax debt, King said Sharpton has started paying it off but contends that faulty record-keeping by the National Action Network led the government to overestimate his tax liability.
Tax headaches are not new for Sharpton. The minister has been assailed throughout his career for running up big tax debts and failing to abide by rules governing his charities and election committees. He is perpetually being sued for failing to pay his bills.
If Sharpton is worried about his latest problems, you'd never know it. He is pressing ahead with his latest campaign: an effort to persuade the Justice Department to bring civil-rights charges against New York City police detectives who fired 50 shots and killed an unarmed groom, Sean Bell, on his wedding day. The detectives were acquitted of state charges in the shooting last month.
Sharpton has been investigated before and always walked away clean.
In 1990, he was acquitted of tax fraud and charges that he stole from one of his charities. He followed that up with what was essentially another victory in a tax case by pleading guilty to a misdemeanor charge of failing to file a state return.
In the latest probe, the official overseeing the investigation is U.S. Attorney Benton Campbell, the same Brooklyn-based prosecutor Sharpton is urging to file criminal charges in Bell's death. Campbell's office has said it is reviewing the case but declined to comment further.
Since the late 1990s, Sharpton's civil-rights group has grown from a small outfit, with a few hundred thousand dollars in annual revenue, to an organization that routinely takes in $1 million to $2 million a year, thanks partly to corporate support.
Donors have included Anheuser-Busch, which gave more than $100,000 last year, and Forest City Ratner, a real-estate development company that courted black leaders for support of a plan to build a National Basketball Association arena in Brooklyn. PepsiCo, for several years, gave Sharpton a compensated position on one of its advisory boards.
The group also enjoys financial support from the state's top politicians.
New York Gov. David Paterson has transferred at least $28,000 from his re-election committee to the National Action Network since 2001. Rep. Charles Rangel, a top Democrat in Congress, has been another major backer, giving at least $83,000. New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has given $10,000.
http://www.abajournal.com/news/100s_and_100s_of_ny_lawyers_involved_in_pension_scheme_ag_says/
ReplyDeletePosted May 9, 2008, 10:26 am CDT
By Martha Neil
Updated: "Hundreds and hundreds" of New York lawyers will be implicated in a statewide scheme in which non-employees have improperly been enrolled in the public pension system, the state attorney general says.
In addition to Cuomo's office, other state and federal agencies are also investigating.
http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0820,home-alone-mdash-with-medicaid-fraudsters,440951,4.html
ReplyDeleteThis month, Cuomo brought his biggest case yet, charging a Brooklyn firm called B&H Healthcare Services, doing business as Nursing Personnel Home Care, with having bilked the state out of at least $30 million in bogus Medicaid billings.
Cuomo filed a criminal indictment—alleging grand larceny and fraud—against the company and its president, a man named Walter Greenfeld. He simultaneously filed a civil suit in State Supreme Court asking for treble damages against the company (that would be $90 million), and named the firm's officers and shareholders as defendants.
Here's one of the interesting aspects of the civil suit: Several of the shareholders identified in the lawsuit have the same last names—Schreiber and Goldstein—as the two principal officers of B&H Photo, the giant camera retailer on Ninth Avenue. Moreover, according to Cuomo's complaint, B&H Home Health Care/Nursing Personnel for some reason paid more than $2 million to B&H Photo.
The complaint goes out of its way to state that B&H Photo is not a shareholder in the home health-care company, and a lawyer representing the defendant said the similar names were just a coincidence. B&H—the photo company—didn't return calls.
Then there's the fact that the biggest owner in B&H/Nursing Personnel, according to the complaint, is a major political contributor named Isaac "Yitzchok" Schwartz, who lives on Rodney Street in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and holds 40 percent of the company.
Schwartz is well known in political circles as a generous donor to campaigns. He has mostly kept a low profile, but his picture got snapped in 1996 when he showed up at LaGuardia Airport with leaders of Williamsburg's Hasidic community to welcome then–Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole and escort him to a Brooklyn fundraiser.
This fall, Schwartz and his family donated $4,600—the maximum allowed—to Rudy Giuliani's ill-fated presidential campaign. Overall, records show that he and his loved ones have pumped $97,000 into federal races since 1995. His recipients range from George W. Bush and former senator Alfonse D'Amato to Brooklyn Democratic congressman Anthony Weiner and Alabama Republican senator Richard Shelby. Schwartz is also partial to Rhode Island representative Patrick Kennedy, son of Massachussetts senator Ted Kennedy, who has received $14,000 from the businessman and his family since 2001.
He's also been active in state races, plowing $30,000 into campaigns since 2001. He gave $3,500 to Eliot Spitzer's 2006 gubernatorial campaign, as well as $1,000 to the very man who's currently suing him—Attorney General Cuomo. But most of his state donations went to former governor George Pataki and other Republican candidates.
He had good reason to like Pataki. In the late '90s, Schwartz joined a team that included a bevy of major Republican campaign contributors and businessmen to form a new company called CarePlus, which won approvals to participate in the new and lucrative field of Medicaid managed care. In a 2002 Voice article, Wayne Barrett described how Pataki aides at the state health department shoehorned the company into the bidding process after it flunked initial agency evaluations.
Schwartz did not respond to requests for comment. As a corporate entity, B&H/Nursing Personnel is represented by attorney Randy Mastro, a former Giuliani deputy. Mastro declined to discuss the case. The firm has pled not guilty, and Mastro said when the charges were filed that the $30 million figure cited in the complaint is "vastly inflated."
Mastro was also the attorney for an earlier major target of state authorities, an adult day-care operator named Lawrence Friedman, who pled guilty in 2001 to Medicaid fraud and agreed to repay $48 million. One of the things that made Friedman's case notorious was that his entree to Pataki officials was brokered by a pair of Williamsburg businessmen named Joseph Goldberger and Joseph Menczer, who helped raise an astonishing $500,000 for the former governor.
Known as the "Two Josephs," the men are key power brokers for the Williamsburg Orthodox community, and, according to several neighborhood sources, are close allies of Schwartz and B&H/Nursing Personnel. They are also apparently irrepressible. Although it was Spitzer, as attorney general, who brought charges against Friedman and helped spotlight the role the men played with the Pataki administration, both Menczer and Goldberger were prominent guests at Spitzer's election-eve victory celebration and at his inauguration. In a photo that ran in the Daily News, the Two Josephs are seen beaming at Spitzer, his wife, and daughters as they descended the capital steps after his inaugural address.
Genack is a putz. He confronted Rubashkin about the illegal drugs in Postville. Rubashkin swore he didn't know the employees were doing that.
ReplyDeleteIs that the only thing the OU cares about?
What about human rights, kashrus, health, illegal explosives, et cetera?
Belsky poskens drugs are mutter because they derive from plants and the kelim to process them are not generally used for any kind of tarfus.
ReplyDeleteThere is a run on kapotas in prison orange. My Rubashkin shvoggers & Leib Pinter get first dibs.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.thejewishweek.com/viewArticle/c37_a9467/News/National.html
ReplyDeleteTwo legal experts suggested this week that the federal government could be laying the groundwork for possible indictments against the owners of the country’s largest kosher meat manufacturer.
The comments come in the wake of Monday’s raid on AgriProcessors’ slaughterhouse in Postville, Iowa, when federal authorities entered the plant and arrested 390 workers — more than a third of the company’s workforce — on illegal immigration charges. On Tuesday, 29 workers were charged with crimes including identity theft and using false social security numbers, according to a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s office.
“It’s clear [from the affadavit’s allegations] that the government is thinking of an up-the-ladder chain of getting either the whole corporation or some senior managers,” said Marc Stern, general counsel to the
American Jewish Congress, who reviewed the affadavit. “There are clearly some supervisors who are at great risk with being charged with harboring aliens in systematic fashion. There’s also a tantalizing thing in there about different-colored paychecks that suggests a slush fund for paying illegals.”
“Whoever from the corporation is involved with that is at great risk,” Stern continued. “They [the government] lay the groundwork for such a charge. But whether they can prove it beyond a supervisory level or will even attempt it is too early to say.”
The affidavit filed by a senior special agent of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement department lists dozens of pages of allegations against the company’s owners and supervisors. The document portrays them as exploiters of a vulnerable illegal immigrant work force, and it could be seen as setting the owners and supervisors up for possible indictment.
Allegations include that company owners and supervisors physically abused and exploited workers; knowingly hired workers without legal documentation; altered work records; paid some off the books; and paid them below minimum wage (starting workers at $5 an hour).
In addition, the affadavit alleges that company owners and supervisors fraudulently and forcibly sold them used cars and trucks, threatening that they would be fired if they didn’t buy the vehicles.
“Our company takes the immigration laws seriously,” AgriProcessors said in a statement, adding that it cooperated with the government “in the enforcement action” and will continue to operate during the investigation. It also assured consumers that it is continuing to supply glatt kosher meats and poultry.
AgriProcessors produces about 60 percent of the kosher meat and 40 percent of the kosher poultry in the U.S market.
Washington attorney Nathan Lewin, who has represented AgriProcessors and its owners, the Rubashkin family, in the past, conveyed surprise this week at the breadth of the affadavit’s allegations.
The “fact is there was a lot of material in there that did not seem to be relevant [to the immigration charges]. It has all sorts of allegations [against the owners and supervisors], all sorts of information gleaned from all sorts of places,” he said.
“Whether or not charges are brought against the Rubashkins, that remains to be seen,” Lewin said. He said he does not yet know if he is representing AgriProcessors in this current matter.
He added that he did not believe the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the Rubashkins were in talks at the present time.
http://www.thejewishweek.com/viewArticle/c37_a9467/News/National.html
ReplyDeleteThe affidavit also alleges that an informant saw evidence of methamphetamines being manufactured at the plant.
In the wake of Monday’s raid, the country’s leading kosher supervising agency, the Orthodox Union, expressed concern about the situation.
“The different issues, like immigration, we don’t have expertise or authority in that area but will follow the authorities’ lead,” said Rabbi Menachem Genack, the OU’s kashrut administrator. The OU is one of the two current kosher certifiers of AgriProcessors products, and the most widely accepted.
“We’ll see where this leads in terms of determinations the government makes,” Rabbi Genack said. “If they find that the company is culpable we will respond. In terms of some of the claims, like drug use, they [the Rubashkins’] say that it’s not true, but I will wait to see what the determination is. If workers there make drugs, whatever it is, and without sanction of management, then it wouldn’t affect us. But if it was with the knowledge of the company then it would affect us,” he said.
If the government concludes that the company’s owners were culpable, “It certainly would be something we would be concerned about,” he said.
The federal investigation dates back to last November, and involved sending in undercover workers who recorded conversations about buying false employment documents.
Beyond the challenge of finding new (and legal) workers to replace those arrested this week, the incident and other related investigations could mean major problems for AgriProcessors’ owners, Brooklyn-based Aaron Rubashkin and his son, Rabbi Sholom Rubashkin, who runs the Iowa plant.
Officials at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement department and the U.S. Attorney’s office said that they could make no comment as to whether the Rubashkins will be charged.
Sholom Rubashkin did not return a message left on his cell phone.
At the same time, the U.S Department of Labor and Iowa Department of Labor are investigating AgriProcessors practices. In March, the Iowa Division of Labor Services levied $182,000 in fines against AgriProcessors for 39 health and safety violations.
There are troubles for the company even beyond the realm of the government. One of the company’s three kosher supervising agencies recently terminated its relationship with the meat maker.
K’hal Adath Jeshurun, based in Washington Heights, ended its supervision of all AgriProcessor products effective April 15. Rabbi Moshe Edelstein, KAJ’s kashrut administrator, would not say why the step was taken. A letter KAJ officials sent to Aaron Rubashkin in December, however, made it clear that the AgriProcessor owner had appealed the supervising agency’s original decision to terminate the relationship, a conclusion it upheld.
But despite the crises, AgriProcessors’ business has recently been on the upswing, said Menachem Lubinsky, editor of KosherToday.com, who also has a public relations firm and is representing the Rubashkins.
(Lubinsky said Agriprocessors is not the only slaughterhouse to have been recently raided by immigration authorities. “It’s not an aberration for I.C.E., they do this all over at meat plants.”)
AgriProcessors kosher meat brands are: Aaron’s Best, Aaron’s Choice, Rubashkin’s, European Glatt, Supreme Kosher, David’s, and Shor Habor. Two-thirds of their product is non-kosher (since kosher meat can come only from part of an animal), and is sold through retailers including Wal-Mart, Trader Joe’s and Pathmark.
While no one knows for sure what the privately held company earns, a Dunn & Bradstreet report pegs Rubashkin Industries’ annual income at $84.9 million. Family members’ business interests are diversified beyond meat, and into real estate and other ventures. Sales of kosher beef and poultry in America are about $300 million annually, according to industry sources.
What remains unknown is the impact of this week’s raids on AgriProcessors’ short-term business. The company released a statement this week stating, “there will be no shortage in the supply of glatt kosher meats and poultry.”
According to Lubinsky, “They have a lot of different resources at their disposal.”
In addition to the Iowa and Nebraska plants, the company also owns slaughterhouses in Uruguay and Argentina.
“As a company, they have more than the usual number of resources to tap into. It’s not as if even if this plant shuts down they’re out of business. The company thinks it will be able to maintain the level of production and supply. I don’t know how, but that’s what they say,” said Lubinsky.
But it is having an impact. While AgriProcessor was up and running, though at reduced production, on Tuesday, the Midwestern cattle markets were down “because AgriProcessor wasn’t buying,” said Bob Teig, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office. The plant had halted operation on Monday after the federal raid.
Local distributors and retailers predicted that prices for kosher meat will rise even more as a result of the AgriProcessor problems.
Sheesh. After everything I've done for Uncle Milty, he doesn't put me on the A list for prison orange kapotas.
ReplyDeleteSorcher is friends with Rabinowitz who has a shul at R & 27th. Professor Marc Shapiro caught him plagiarizing a book from an obscure Reform Rabbi in the 1800s.
ReplyDeleteRubashkin sells one of his brands to Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart just so happens to have a policy of not buying from any company if the company itself or it's owners have been indicted for crimes. That's why they won't buy from Starbucks (because of owner Schultz) and why Rubashkin will lose them as a customer even if they survive.
ReplyDeleteInternet Warning at Yeshiva Darchei Torah
ReplyDeleteMay 14, 2008
A warning about the danger to children of unfettered access to the Internet through computers and cellular phones was delivered to hundreds of Yeshiva Darchei Torah parents Monday night by Rabbi Yaakov Bender Shlita, the Rosh Hayeshiva.
The yeshiva is not known for shying away from modern educational tools and methods - and is even notable for the businesslike manner in which it conducts activities such as large meetings and fundraising - but Rabbi Bender used an uncharacteristically lengthy hour-long address to deliver a firmly anti-Internet message.
He went so far as to say that no home ought to have Internet access without the approval and guidance of one’s rav or rebbe, according to Moshe Benoliel, a yeshiva spokesman.
That would appear to echo a no-Internet policy introduced in Lakewood, N.J.’s yeshiva community several years ago, though it is unclear if, behind closed doors, there is anything approaching widespread observance of the ban.
No specific incident precipitated Rabbi Bender’s remarks, Mr. Benoliel said, though he did relate a few horror stories during his speech.
In bringing up what he considers to be a very serious problem, he “stated that the dangers inherent in modern technology may be the greatest threat faced by the Jewish People in its history,” recounted Mr. Benoliel - Rabbi Bender was prepared with suggested solutions.
Technical experts were on hand, and literature was available to advise parents about Internet filters and even “kosher phones” in which all features are disabled except telephone service and voicemail. No text messaging; no Internet access.
Yeshiva administrators spent days making phone calls urging parents to attend. In the end, 600 people showed up, a very good turnout, Mr. Benoliel said.
(By Jewish Star Staff)
Regarding Rabinowitz's plagiarism, someone who emailed Professor Shapiro's expose a few years ago to friends was yelled at by a rov for spreading "loshon horah". The rov had personal negias and a vested interest in covering up. The fellow then turned to a very respected posek in the yeshiva world who ruled that Rabinowitz's stunt should be publicized because the Reform book should not be learned and added that there is obviously something wrong with Rabinowitz. The rov did a pathetic backtrack out of embarassment, claiming he never meant it was "lemaasehdikka loshon horah" but rather that he was feeling ill about all the bad news swirling around in general.
ReplyDeleteCell phones, huh? And what exactly did Yankel Bender do when he met with Shea Fishman & Scheinerman about Kolko?
ReplyDeleteRubashkin has to be incredibly stupid. The loser knew he was under investigation and did virtually nothing to clean up house.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.newsday.com/services/newspaper/printedition/wednesday/longisland/ny-lihat145684963may14,0,7751203.story
ReplyDeletePolice: Disguised bank robber has struck 3 times
matthew.chayes@newsday.com; Staff writer
May 14, 2008
A man of many hats he is.
Police say the stocky, middle-aged bank robber who donned creative costumes and threatened tellers with fake bombs and nerve gas in the past has returned, striking on Long Island at least three times since Friday.
And distinguishing himself by his headgear.
An Indiana Jones fedora. A black hat favored by Hasidic Jewish men. He once even applied makeup to a turban costume to make himself look more dark-skinned, police said.
Nassau investigators say he's successfully demanded cash at banks at least 10 times since 2006 in New York City and in Nassau and Suffolk counties.
"The disguises? Obviously, he doesn't want anybody to know exactly who he is," said Det. Sgt. John. J. Giambrone, commander of the Nassau robbery squad.
"And he feels if he wears the disguise, he doesn't have to keep his head down and he has a better chance of getting away."
Referencing surveillance camera footage being reviewed by investigators, Giambrone said, "We refer to him here dressed as a pirate or as the Gloucester Fisherman."
Police believe the same man who robbed a Roslyn Savings Bank in New Hyde Park on Friday also robbed an Emigrant Savings Bank in Elmont Monday and a Bank of America, also in New Hyde Park, about a half-hour later.
At the Emigrant in Elmont, witnesses said he simply wore a black hat. In the robbery immediately afterward, a witness described his hat as resembling one Indiana Jones would wear.
For the most part, the robberies tend to occur during inclement weather so that, police suspect, fewer people are likely to be on the street to witness his flight and police response times are likely to be delayed.
Still, since any cash he stole appears to have come from teller drawers, the maximum he's been able to get has been a few thousand dollars, Giambrone said.
"He hasn't gotten much," Giambrone said.
During all the robberies, the typed demand notes the robber passes also appear to be, for the most part, identical.
"They all indicate that if the teller doesn't comply, that someone's going to be hurt or he might shoot," he said.
Rabbi Bender;
ReplyDeleteThe greatest "threat faced by Jewish people in its History" today as you so melodramatically put it is not the Internet but:
The duplicity, hypocrisy, and double-talking of our rabbinic leaders who say one thing but do another.
1. Preaching to their students ehrlichkeit but hiring, harboring, and protecting pedophile(s) and covering up/protecting them after they have been outed.
2. Refusing to institute fingerprinting and other verification methods to insure that such characters are not hired and additionally lobbying Politicians that their court-mandated reporter employees not be required to report abuses when they see it.
3. The incredible disgrace and massive Chilul Hashem that is the state of ka$hru$$$$$ today in our midst. No Ka$ru$$$$$ agency can be tru$ted. What foods can you eat today with confidence? The answer you provide is that we should Go search for those microscopic buggies with a high powered electron microscope strapped to our noses. This is normal? This is authentic Judaism?
Finkel
Heinneman
Scheinerman Ave J plumbas
Gornish
Katz
Add you favorite mashgiach/Agency here:
And of course, the Mother of all Ka$hru$$$$$ agencies, the OU, who for years turned a BLIND EYE to the
Rubashkins stellar abuse of their illegal immigrant employees. Hey Genack, count 'em; 18 (CHAI)Federal Agencies ( Poetic Justice?, Zeh L'Umas Zeh))raided the Rubashkin Postville plant this past Monday and found incredible tinaf abuse by these "Frum" Yidden
aided and abetted by you and your mashgichim. Rabbi Bender, please tell us is this Kashrus? What do you suppose your students reactions are to these events?
4. Ehrlichkeit in business dealings. Do you teach this? Why do we daily read of Frum Yidden screwing their customers, partners, and Government agencies of incredible sums of Gelt? Why is Otisville full of frum white collar criminals? As a manhig do you bear any responsibility for this population? Glatt Kosher food, daily Daf Yomi, separate Ashkenazi & Sephardic Minyanim. gevaldig.
5. Organizations, Mosdos, and Dass Toiyreh consistently honoring on their Dais and taking the contributions of treif gelt from the biggest thieves, lowlives, and Menuvalim. The young people and now Adults that passed through your portals; What do you think their reaction is? Perhaps disilluionment? Why do have so many kids at risk, Rabbi Bender? Because of the Internet or because you and your Rabbinic colleagues do not practice what you preach?
5. Corrupt to the core Botei Din.
6. Your production of young adults that have absolutely no knowledge or skills to make an honest parnassah in today's continuous technological advancing world and thus subjected to abject poverty unable to support their families and marry off their kids. They can't even speak grammatically correct henglish but instead are brainwashed by you and your colleagues to zitz und lern tomid/eibig and to have Bitochen viyel Hakodeh Boruch Hu will provide. Can you imagine your talmidim's disallusionment and feelings of betrayal when their Kool-Aid has worn off? Incalcuble.
You're a scam artist.
No Rabbi Bender, the biggest threat to us today is not the Internet.
Look in the mirror and you will find the true answer.
Rabbi Bender, it is very unfortunate that there is currently no
BARUCH HASHEM THE END OF RUBASHKIN IS NEAR!!!
ReplyDeletePostville, IA - U.S. Congressman Bruce Braley, D-Waterloo, wrote a letter to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which conducted Monday’s raids, urging them to “fully investigate” Agriprocessors for possible immigration law violations. The raid netted 390 arrests, or about 40 percent of the work force.
“This figure alone raises questions about Agriprocessors’ commitment to making sure they have a legal workforce,” Braley wrote.
Meanwhile PETA sent an urgent letter today to Iowa Governor Chet Culver urging him to immediately pressure applicable state and local authorities to revoke all operating licenses for AgriProcessors, Inc., which is located in Postville and owned by the Rubashkin family.
The only thing left to be answered is which will happen first: Mondrowitz' extradition or Rubashkin's extinction? Both are imminent!
Does anyone have information on the following Rabbis improprieties?
ReplyDelete1) Rabbi Azriel Tauber having a serious "Mordechai Tendler" problem over many years?
2) Rabbi Yitzcahk Wasserman of the Denver Yeshivah having a Rabbi Eiseman problem?
3) Rabbi Lipa Gelbwirth of YTT having a Rabbi Kolko problem?
I have heard these rumors from multiple sources, and wanted to know what can be confirmed here on UOJ? Thanks
State of the Jews says ....
ReplyDeleteMuch more important then knowing brand names is the USDA plant number which must appear on all product. Agriprocessor plant number is est. P4653A. Using this I know foe example that Nathan's Kosher Hot Dogs are made by Agri.
If you look for the plant number Rubashkin can run, but he can't hide.
Heh, I saw an article in the Jewish Week that referred to Shalom Rubashkin as "Rabbi." Anyone know where he got smicha?
Ezriel Tauber has a problem all right. Let him show up in beis din to make good on people's investments that he blew. R' Dovid Cohen wants to nail him and may actually be correct in Tauber's case.
ReplyDeleteI am unfortunately able to confirm that the behavior of Ezriel Tauber of Monsey, has caused numerous people to allege to me, that in shalom bayit sessions, he has come on to the women when they were alone.
ReplyDeleteI did not go public because the women refused to put their names on the allegations.
I have no proof - but I personally, for many reasons and sources, believe the allegations to be true!
http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080509/NEWS/80509007
ReplyDeleteMay 09, 2008
Monroe — Operating a business out of an illegally built three-car garage should have no bearing on the Zoning Board of Appeals’ consideration of whether the garage should stay or go, said attorneys for Herman Wagschal, the rabbi fighting to keep the matzo bakery.
The convoluted logic came from Wagschal’s Rockland County attorneys at Feerik Lynch MacCartney just before the public hearing on the case closed last night. The case pits neighbor upon neighbor in a primarily Hasidic section of town.
Wagschal, of 16 Lanzut Court, built a garage extension onto his McMansion-synagogue without permits, and in defiance of stop-work orders by the town. His attorneys say that shouldn’t matter, because the rabbi needed the garage for religious reasons – an extra entrance for his female congregants, as well as space to bake matzos to his religious specifications.
The rabbi is asking for a variance to keep the garage, which exceeds the town’s setback requirements.
Wagschal’s neighbor Eli Neuhauser claims the rabbi has been lying to the town. Last month his attorney gave the ZBA copies of Yiddish and Hebrew ads offering Wagschal’s matzos to anyone who would pay for them. Jonas Hoffman, a Hasidic member of the Zoning Board, prepared a translation of those ads. Board Chairman Scott Braghirol read the translation.
Hoffman, who visited Wagschal’s home, said it was his belief the rabbi’s son is attempting to start a matzo business but that he would likely move the business out of the home once it took off. Wagschal’s attorney Dennis Lynch considered Hoffman’s statement proof his client had done no wrong.
Braghirol disagreed.
“The point is he’s selling matzos,” the chairman said.
Lynch said the ZBA could offer a variance with conditions preventing a business.
“How about removing all the matzo baking equipment?” Braghirol suggested.
“It’s a religious need,” Lynch seethed.
Neuhauser presented photos of more 18 wheelers at Wagschal’s home and gave evidence that Wagschal was selling matzos all over the country.
With the public hearing now over, the board has up to three months to make a final decision.
jsullivan@th-record.com
The NY Times is reporting that Chassidish guys from Brooklyn are regulars who hang out naked at a Korean bath house in Queens.
ReplyDeleteFor those of you wondering about my partner in crime Barry Goldstein. This may be something he was involved in in the 1970s. Let's see if you sleuths can dig up the details:
ReplyDeleteLuigi Goldstein, Inc. v. United States, 217 Ct. Cl. 733, 734 (1978);
See Shmarya - The man responsible for bringing the Tropper fraud to the fore!
ReplyDeleteFailedmessiah.com
-----------------------------
Eternal Haredi Family
At least one American haredi rabbi has revoked a conversion more than one year after supervising it.
Who is that rabbi? Why did he revoke the conversion? Could something be…
…desperately wrong in Monsey?
I think so.
Who is the rabbi? Leib Tropper of Horizons, Kol Yakov and Eternal Jewish Family fame.
The reason for revoking the conversion? You'll have to read all about it over on Jewcy.com where David Kelsey and I dish the details.
(There are a couple of tiny errors in the Jewcy piece that slipped in. They should be corrected this morning. The only one you really need to be concerned with is in the first paragraph. Rabbi Tropper filed his nullification of the conversion with Israeli Chief Rabbinate.)
Agudah Women of America cordially invites you to our Annual Luncheon
ReplyDeleteWHEN: Sunday, May 18, 2008
WHERE: The Renaissance, 5902 - 14th Avenue • Brooklyn. New York
Reception: 11:30 a.m. — Luncheon 12:00 noon
As you are probably aware, Neshei makes a difference in Jews' lives in Israel and in the US.
Although it's very last minute, the deadline for ads in the journal was extended until today (the earlier, the safer)!!!
The rates are the following: full page is $200, Silver $300, Gold $400, Diamond $500, Patron then $1,800 then more. Half page is $100 and there are some smaller ads.
Just Luncheon- $54. This lunch is a full meal, so... make sure you've got your spot reserved, and... come hungry!
Your ad/reservation can be sent by e-mail (info@agudahwomen.org AND pls cc to AlizaGrund@aol.com, or fax 212-363 8941). In case you've got any question, pls feel free to contact the office at 212-363 8940, 212-797 9000-ask for Neshei.
See you there!
Blimie Balsam
Kesser Shem Tov Award
Fabia Preminger
Gemillat Chesed Award
Ruchie Weill
Young Leadership Award
Hannah Kalish Libby Muller
Director Journal Chairman
Jack Choueka, M.D.
Chairman
Department of Orthopedic Surgery& Musculoskeletal Services
Maimonides Medical Center
Community Service Award
Leah Fischer Leah Gelernter
Luncheon Co-Chairmen
Rebbitzen Beila Flam Mrs. Judith Schiffer
Strettiner Rebbitzen
Guests of Honor
Reb. Chaya Frankel Daniela Chaya Buxbaum Esther Bohensky
Honorary Presidents
Aliza Grund Reb. Rose Isbee
Presidium
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• Bikur Cholim van for patients & volunteers
• Help and guidance in resettling new immigrants
• Gemilas Chesed Loans, Shabbos Meal Fund and financial assistance for needy families
• Aim V’Yeled Program for mothers and their newborns
• Nurseries and kindergartens for children who would otherwise not be in a Torah-true environment
• Beth Yehudah Girls’ Home in Rishon L’Tzion providing care and vocational training from childhood
through marriage
• Basya Grund Memorial Library of English Judaica
• Miriam Borchardt Educational and Service Center in Petach Tikvah
• Weekly classes throughout the country
• Linens and diaper projects for new brides and young mothers
Pathetic, there is no mention of chassidim in the article. Voos plopple zach? Or do you have the inside story?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/11/fashion/11inspa.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=korean+bathhouse&st=nyt&oref=slogin
http://yudelstake.blogspot.com/2008/05/agri-rubashkinsupremeaarons.html?showComment=1210682280000#c8076521502746010822
ReplyDeleteA Former Menaker said...
I look at he sum of many things and realize that no one knows the whole picture.
I look at Feigs Meat store in Tuscon Arizona who just closed up after 25 years in business. He could not compete with the local supermarket who was selling Rubashkin retail cuts of meat. Feigs was supporting a few frum families and shuls, yeshiva. etc. They closed owing a lot of money all around. And - he was also a Rubashkin customer. Rubashkin made more money selling retail cuts to a goy then wholesale cuts to a yid.
Same story happened to Best Value Meats in Philadelphia. Do you think that Philadelphia is better off with 1 less frum company?
Same story happened with the LAST KOSHER BUTCHER STORE under KAJ in Washington Heights. Long Island Glatt (I always thought that was a strange name) begged KAJ to ask Rubashkin to stop selling meat to Met Foods and C-Town.
Do you know what it is like to lose your business, your livlihood, your Parnasa to a bunch of Goyim in a supermarket? Will they support shuls and Yeshivot?
Can we compile a list of how many Frun companies closed down because Rubashkin sold to Shoprite or Met Foods or Kroger?
Anonymous said...
Look at how many they support-
The Weismandels whole extended family.
The Dayan Brody extended family.
The Gornish extended family.
The Spiegel extended family.
The Yechiel Steinmetz extended family.
The Strasser extended family.
All of the So called Schoichtim, Mashgichim's extended families.
The Rubashkin Baalei-Tzedoka extended families.
All of the Salesman's extened families.
Menachem Lubinsky & co.
The OU's extended families.
Rabbi Belsk's extended family (they are supposed to pay for publishing his next book-Empire did the first one).
All of the attorneys & Agudah higher ups.
etc
Rubashkin Fresser said...
What achzoriyus by the government! Rubashkin was a big baal tzedoko who supported half the aniyim in Mexico & Guatemala when his workers sent money home.
http://www.bhol.1800550.co.il/MOV04849.html
ReplyDeleteוידיאו - חשיפה: נבלות וטריפות בהשגחת 'מהדרין ירושלים'
שערוריית ענק בירושלים, ולא בפעם הראשונה. אולם 'שערי העיר' העומד תחת השגחת 'רבנות מהדרין - ירושלים', מאכיל את אורחיו בבשר טריפה. עובד המקום מסר עדות שצולמה בוידאו לכתב 'בחדרי חרדים'. ברבנות ירושלים מתחמקים ממתן הסברים
דוב האזרחי
תאריך: 13/05/2008 17:24:00
שערוריה: נבלות וטריפות מוגשים לסועדים באולם 'שערי העיר', העומד תחת כשרות 'רבנות מהדרין - ירושלים'. כך עולה מעדותו של פועל ערבי שהועסק באולם בו מתקיימים אירועים רבים של משפחות מהציבור החרדי. העובד סיפר את סיפורו ביום א' האחרון לדב האזרחי ותמציתו תועדה במצלמת וידאו.
http://yudelstake.blogspot.com/2008/05/agri-rubashkinsupremeaarons.html?showComment=1210767660000#c5583714682065724879
Yudel Shain said...
בשר ממקור לא מזוהה חשיפה: נבלות וטריפות בהשגחת 'מהדרין רושלים'
שערוריית ענק בירושלים, ולא בפעם הראשונה. אולם 'שערי העיר' העומד תחת השגחת 'רבנות מהדרין - ירושלים', מאכיל את אורחיו בבשר טריפה. עובד המקום מסר עדות שצולמה בוידאו לכתב 'בחדרי חרדים'. ברבנות ירושלים מתחמקים ממתן הסברים
דוב האזרחי
תאריך: 13/05/2008 17:24:00
שערוריה: נבלות וטריפות מוגשים לסועדים באולם 'שערי העיר', העומד תחת כשרות 'רבנות מהדרין - ירושלים'. כך עולה מעדותו של פועל ערבי שהועסק באולם בו מתקיימים אירועים רבים של משפחות מהציבור החרדי. העובד סיפר את סיפורו ביום א' האחרון לדב האזרחי ותמציתו תועדה במצלמת וידאו.
העובד סיפר על השתלשלות העניינים לכתב 'בחדרי חרדים': "ראיתי משלוחים של עופות שמגיעים בדלת האחורית במין מסתוריות שכזו, ומיד נדרשנו לפרק את העופות ולחתוך ברגלי העופות חתך עם סכין יפנית.
"שאלתי את העובדים, חברי לעבודה מה זה הפנסים האלו שאנו נדרשים לעשות בעופות, ומהיכן מגיעים העופות הללו? שכן אינני מצוי ומכיר את כל נושא הכשרות, על כך ענו לי שמדובר בעופות שמגיעים מכפר ערבי ליד פסגת זאב ולפי כללי הכשרות צריך לפתוח ולחתוך ברגל וכך זה נראה טוב וכשר והאורחים לא ישאלו שאלות מיותרות".
ניסיונות האולם לחסוך בהוצאות על חשבון הכשרות לא הסתיימו רק בכשרות העופות, גם את בקבוקי הוודקה היקרים מתוצרת 'אבסולוט' נדרשו העובדים למלאת בחומרים אחרים וזולים כאשר אחרי המילוי נסגרו הבקבוקים בנילון שנצמד בשיטה של זיוף מקומי, וכך הם הוצגו כחדשים.
הרב אליהו שלזינגר
כתב 'בחדרי חרדים', דוב האזרחי, יצא המום מהעדות ששמע ופנה מיידית לאחראי על הכשרות ברבנות ירושלים, הרב אליהו שליזנגר. זה הביע זעזוע מהסיפור ששמע והבטיח לטפל במקרה ביסודיות וללא דיחוי. ליתר בטחון ביקש וגם קיבל הרב שלזינגר את מספר הטלפון של העובד המדובר בכדי שיוכל לתחקרו ולבדוק את הנושא.
כתב 'בחדרי חרדים' הציע לרב שלזינגר שיבוא מיד ויתחקר את העובד. "אם יש צורך", הציע האזרחי לרב, "אוכל לבוא איתך ללא דיחוי למקום בכדי שתוכל לפעול מיידית ולמנוע מאכלות אסורות מיהודים כשרים". הצעה הוגנת ומחוייבת המציאות - אך הדבר לא נעשה.
חלפו להם יומיים שלמים ומתברר כי העובד לא קבל טלפון, ואף אחד לא ניסה לברר עמו על הכשלים החמורים עליהם העיד. גם לאחר פניות חוזרות ונשנות שנעשו היום (ג) לא התקבלה כל תשובה או התייחסות, ובאורח פלא, לא היה ניתן כלל להשיג את הרב שלזינגר.
במענה לפניית 'בחדרי חרדים', אמר גורם בכיר ברבנות ירושלים: "הרב שלזינגר איננו פועל באופן אחראי והוא מושפע מגורמים שליליים הסובבים אותו. התופעה הזו של טיפול כושל בעניינים חמורים שכאלה אינה חדשה והיא מוכרת וידועה".
למניעת טעות יצויין, כי מדובר באולם 'מרכז אירועים - שערי העיר' ולא במלון 'שערי העיר'
.
תגובתו של הרב שלזינגר
טיפלנו ותחקרנו את העניין ואין אמת בדברים.
לא דברנו עם הפועל כי עסקנו בנושאים דחופים יותר.
אנו נמשיך לבדוק וגם נתחקר את העובד מחר(ד').
מחלקתנו עובדת במסירות נפש וחבל שגורמים אינטרסנטים מכפישים אותנו.
:קישורים
קטע וידאו מעדותו של הפועל
State of the Jews Said...
ReplyDeleteThursday, May 15, 2008
May 15, 2008
Statement from the Jewish Federation of Greater Des Moines
regarding the Federal immigration raid in Postville, IA
Enforce the law humanely, Reform the system, and Ensure fair labor practices
Along with most Iowans, the Jewish Federation of Greater Des Moines has been following the accounts of the federal law enforcement raid in Postville very closely. The Federation believes the immigration laws must be enforced, yet we
are vitally concerned with the wellbeing of the families affected. We join with those, including a majority of national Jewish communal organizations, who favor comprehensive immigration reform. The system, in many respects, is not working.
Our concern, however, is also directed to the kosher meatpacking company Agriprocessors whose plant was the target of the raid. Although all the details have yet to come out, it is alleged that Agriprocessors engaged in illegal and unethical practices. Unfortunately this is not the first time this company has
been accused of alleged misdeeds. The company has been cited by the FDA for such matters as bribing federal officials and there is a case pending alleging unfair labor practices. If these charges are correct, the company would warrant the condemnation of the entire Jewish community of Iowa, and of Jews everywhere.
What makes the circumstance particularly egregious to the Jewish community is that this corporation, which serves as a religiously- based business, in producing kosher meat, has seemingly failed to adhere to both civil law and Jewish law.
We expect that the American legal system will fairly adjudicate all the legal matters involving the company and the workers charged with violating immigration regulations.
----------------------------------
This statement is authorized by the Jewish Federation of Greater Des Moines and
issued on behalf of the Jewish Federation by the Jewish Community Relations
Commission. JCRC@dmjfed.org
Hey Baltimoron, I wish you didn't post the link because there are people reading this that will have a tayva to frolick around in the nude over there.
ReplyDeleteYou missed this part:
"The first “mainstream Americans” to become regulars were Russians and Hasidic men from Brooklyn, said Yong Seok Choi, Inspa’s vice president. Now there is an eclectic mix."
2 busloads to replace 800 workers who were arrested or fled.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080515/NEWS10/805150406/-1/BUSINESS04
On Tuesday, two busloads of workers arrived at Agriprocessors to replace workers who have been detained or who fled after the raid, according to Violeta Aleman, a quality-control inspector who works for an outside contractor.
Aleman said that she saw the new workers Wednesday and that they were working in the beef and poultry sections of the plant.
Agudath Israel Scores California “Marriage” Decision
ReplyDeleteMay 15, 2008
NEW YORK – Reacting to the California Supreme Court’s ruling today that “Teoiva” couples in that state have a constitutional right to marry, an Agudath Israel of America leader called the decision “profoundly offensive and dangerous.”
“In light of California’s domestic partnership law, this decision is entirely and only about the word ‘marriage’ and the concept it conveys,” continued Rabbi David Zwiebel, Agudath Israel’s executive vice president for government and public affairs. “As such, by reading a radical redefinition of the term into California’s constitution, the court has taken a stance that vilifies communities like ours and the countless other Americans who consider the institution of marriage in its traditional form to be the foundation not only of family but of civilized society.
“It effectively sends the message that traditional religious beliefs, based on the Bible and the Jewish religious tradition, are bigotry. That may be the court’s opinion, but there is a Higher Authority that deeply differs.”
This is not the end of the story. We're just at the beginning. Wait until the Feds start to sweat some of these guys. Faced with real jail time they'll all start to sing and Aron Rubashkin will likely spend the rest of his days looking at the world through a jail house window. Come to think of it, so will Shalom and Heshy. They could all join brother Moshe. When is Moshe due to be sentenced?
ReplyDeletehttp://yudelstake.blogspot.com/2008/05/agri-rubashkinsupremeaarons.html?showComment=1210788780000#c2500962522125317948
ReplyDeleteThe former Menaker said...
A few things that were told to me -
Two of the arrested were shochtim
A lot of the workers were on the night shift and just dissapeared from the town. Altho they only arrested 390, many more are gone.
Chickens belong to Rubashkin. They get 60,000 chickens a day, whether they want it or not. These were ordered 60 days ago and cannot be revoked. Nothing was shechted on monday and only 6,000 were shechted yesterday. NOw, they have a backlog of 112,000 chickens that have to be fed or they will die in a few hours
No cattle was shechted Monday or Tuesday, regardless of what R Weissmandel said
The OU is fit to be tied. There were huge screaming matches on Tuesday (MOnday, everyone was in Newark at the OU spring conference for Mashgichim (if I have the time later, I will transcibe my notes on Rabbi Mandel's talk and Rabbi Weinreb's talk). Genack has been embarressed many times because of Agri and the money people (Elefant) still want the $$$ to flow in
Can anyone verify an allegation made by someone at Yudel's blog that Rubashkin had earlier moysered on Empire for employing illegals?
ReplyDeletehttp://yudelstake.blogspot.com/2008/05/agri-rubashkinsupremeaarons.html?showComment=1210818840000#c4275525834449145567
ReplyDeleteState of the Jews said ...
There used to be two Palestinian/Israeli Arab brothers working at Agri: Mohammed and Hassan. I hear Mohammed went/was sent back home a few months ago. Hassan still works there. Noboby can figure out the relationship between the Rubashkins and these guys. The feds will figure it out.
Agri brought in a bus load or two of workers from the Agri plant in Gordon, NB because of the backlog of chickens. Your correct, Rubashkin contract grows birds and the birds won't last long without food and water and all cooped up (where is PETA when you need them).
Also heard Hassan was going around offering anybody who can work $11/hour to come back to the plant.
Read the affidavit. It's a trail and it explains why Rubashkin should be very afraid.
These people have done major damage to Jews, the kosher consumer and the image of kashrut.
I'm mad as hell. The story about a masgiach putting duct tape over a workers eyes and then beating him with the back of a meat hook -- There many, many more such stories.
Rubashkin needs to build a new shul -- inside Levenworth.
Disputing what Federal informants recorded while wearing microphones.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.jta.org/cgi-bin/iowa/breaking/108594.html
Rabbi Moses Weissmandel, the top supervising rabbi at Agriprocessors, told JTA Thursday that the government allegations were categorically false. He was addressing claims in an affidavit that the drug methamphetamine was being produced at the site and that rabbinic supervisors had abused plant workers, the bulk of whom are Mexican and Guatemalan.
"I categorically say it's false, it's not true, it's a lie," he said.
Weissmandel did not address claims that the workers were illegal.
"That's not my department," he said.
http://gazetteonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2008949618896
ReplyDeleteRubashkin workers have formed a class action lawsuit against Agriprocessors. Here's what the workers allege…
Slavery, Rubashkin style:
…The suit claims Sonia Parras Konrad, a Polk County attorney, interviewed over 50 detainees who told her Agriprocessors: procured false identification for its immigrant employees; withheld money from their paychecks for "immigration fees"; didn't allow employees to use the restroom during 10-hour shifts; didn't compensate employees for overtime; and were physically abused by supervisors.
The suit also has excerpts from an affidavit filed by David M. Hoagland, senior special agent for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in support of the search warrant issued on Agriprocessors. The alleged violations in the affidavit include:
— Equipment issued to perform work was substandard
— A floor supervisors duct-taped the eyes of a Guatemalan employee and then hit the employee with a meat hook
— Immigrants were paid $5 an hour and after three or four months, bumped up to $6.
The affidavit also contains numerous allegations of violations of the federal racketeering laws including:
— Employee's taxes were deducted and deposited into bank accounts belonging to an unknown person or people.
— An employee transported immigrant employees across state lines to Minnesota to get false state identification cards
— Checks were issued to certain immigrants with an unknown person's name on it and the check would be cashed at another portion of the plant
— A Department of Transportation investigator provided information that a supervisor at the company used an intricate and unlawful scheme to purchase and register a large number of car for resale to the employees and a supervisor forced the employees to buy the cars from him or be fired.…
If the allegations are true, Sholom Mordechai Rubashkin, Heshy Rubashkin and others will spend many years behind bars, and Aaron Rubashkin will spend his last years in prison.
Boog,
ReplyDeleteWhile you are not unentitled to your opinion, and I will not invalidate most of it, you do have to throw the stones where they belong. Rabbi Bender is not a man who hides his head in the sand. He is not giving kool-aid to his talmidim and he is not unaware of the hypocrisy that exists in the Jewish world today. That said, the internet is a nameless and easy target. Televisions still exist in Jewish homes. Magazines and newspapers of questionable morality are brought in to Jewish homes. The shiksher issue in Jewish homes has and never will be addressed. Pick your battles and you will see that over the last 60 years these battles have been rehearsed over and over with different targets. The issue is to get to the foundation of why adults and children need to go after this schmutz. I'm talking practically here and I'm fully aware of the issues from a personal level. When you are bored, lonely, depressed, isolated and persecuted you will find solace in anything that will give you a friendly glance. Rashi says that when Pirkey Avos says to buy a friend, it means seforim. Why? Seforim give and don't take back from you. They make you smile, think, reflect and they comfort. The right seforim, however, are no substitute for a good chaver. Boog, who will you partner with today? Who will you listen to, objectively and without blame or shame? Who do your kids play with? Only the most popular and least objectionable. You're right the mirror is the place to start to start fixing things. Rav Yisroel Salanter said that and many more before him - that you can't fix the world before you fix yourself.
pATHETIC, THANK YOU FOR THE CORRECTION.
ReplyDeleteWE HAVE A FRESSER CRISIS!!!! LUBINSKY NEEDS TO HIRE THE GOONS WHO PULLED OFF THE LIPA BAN TO ISSUE A KOL KOREH BANNING INTERNET USAGE AND ACCESSING NEWS WEBSITES!
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080516/NEWS/80516003
Immigrant workers detained during this week’s Agriprocessors Inc. meatpacking raid in Postville allege that the company withheld pay for what it called “immigration fees,” denied compensation for overtime and refused to let employees use the restroom during some 10-hour shifts, according to a lawsuit filed late Thursday.
The federal lawsuit on behalf of three arrested workers includes accounts of verbal abuse by plant supervisors and one anecdote about a floor manager who threw meat at his employees.
Advertisement
Federal agents raided the plant on Monday and arrested 389 workers suspected to be illegal immigrants. The workers were detained at the National Cattle Congress in Waterloo, identified and taken to initial court appearances in the largest single-site immigration crackdown in U.S. history.
The lawsuit by Antonin Trinidad Candido, Roman Trinidad Candido and Maria del Refugio Masias alleges that the federal government violated each detainee's due-process rights.
The lawsuit was filed by Amy L. Peck, an Omaha-based attorney, who requested that a federal district judge allow the case to expand into a class-action lawsuit that would include all the workers. A judge has yet to approve the class-action status.
The lawsuit cites stories heard by Sonia Parras Konrad, a Des Moines immigration lawyer who interviewed more than 50 detainees in Waterloo.
According to the lawsuit:
-- Workers told Konrad that Agriprocessors Inc. procured bogus identification and employment papers for them.
-- The kosher meatpacking plant withheld $50 per paycheck from employees for what it called “immigration fees.”
-- Plant supervisors subjected the immigrant workers to abuse that included derogatory names and physical abuse.
A federal affidavit signed on May 9 and made public the day of the raid states that federal authorities launched their raid in part because of allegations that Agriprocessors Inc. was exploiting its employees.
Eighteen of the workers were minors, ranging in age from 13 to 17. Federal agents have since turned the youths over to adult guardians or the Office of Refugee Resettlement, which cares for displaced refugees
http://www.forward.com/articles/13394/
ReplyDeleteThe Forward is reporting that there weren't just some guns at Rubashkin but an actual Black market of buying & selling weapons.
B;
ReplyDeleteRabbi Bender is a perfect example of "The Peter Principle". He doesn't have a clue and is in way over his head. Torah Umesorah, take a bow. To say that the Internet is the greatest danger to us in our entire "History of The Jewish People" is so incredibly off the wall and deranged that it indicates a lack of rational thinking and perspective and in addition is classical scape-goating.
Don't blame me The Manhig; it's always some other persons fault or the environment, or the pritzus, yada, yada, yada.
True, these negative environmental situations exist and influence us; the fact is that Bender and colleagues are doing a pitifully poor job.
Success is measured by results and the results and products emanating from our yeshiva systems c/o Bender & colleagues are piss-poor awful. Duplicating these non-results in the corporate world would have pushed Bender and colleagues out the corporate front door so fast that the door would not have had time to hit them in the Tuchis.
It is amazing, unfortunate, to our continuous detriment, but not surprising, that incompetent hacks like Bender & colleagues put out Peiros like you that come to defend them and thus perpetuate this crapola.
More proof that anyone against Rubashkin is a pornographic type of person. Culver didn't do anything to stop this Fascist aktion against Rubashkin!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.kcrg.com/news/local/18972394.html
Playboy Ranks Governor Culver One of Sexiest
By Becky Ogann
Story Updated: May 15, 2008
DES MOINES - Iowa Governor Chet Culver made the list. Playboy Radio's list of most "doable" governors and ex-governors, that is.
http://www.courierwebcasts.com/play.php?vid_id=931&file=iceraidpostville2051408.flv
ReplyDeleteThese behayma gassos had better hope Rubashkin doesn't confuse them with Angus cows and shecht them by mistake!
http://www.courierwebcasts.com/play.php?vid_id=921&file=iceraidncc051208.flv
ReplyDeleteThat equipment looks like hand cuffs for a chain gang.
http://www.plenglish.com/article.asp?ID=%7B2752E602-D3EF-410E-9A94-EADABD03F07F%7D)&language=EN
ReplyDeleteA Cuban newspaper reports on criticism of the govt and support of Rubashkin.
http://www.kcrg.com/home/related/18975289.html
ReplyDeleteThis press release comes to TV9 from Jim Fallon who works in public relations counceling for CMA.
POSTVILLE, IA (May 15, 2008) – Agriprocessors, Inc., continues to make meaningful progress in addressing the challenges presented by the worksite enforcement action by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other agencies on May 12, 2008.
According to Chaim Abrahams, a company representative, Agriprocessors is concentrating its efforts on production.
“We were able to bring the plant back into operation the next day, and even though we’re not running at full capacity, we are able to resume production,” Abrahams said. “We are in the process of replacing workers so we can avoid any interruption of meeting customer needs for high quality products.”
Abrahams also noted that the company was in the process of enhancing its immigration compliance procedures.
“We are working with experts in immigration compliance to help us bolster our compliance efforts to employ only properly documented employees,” he said. “We have signed up for a government electronic verification program, and are working with our consultants on additional compliance measures that will enhance our hiring process.”
Agriprocessors also has launched an independent investigation into the circumstances which led to the worksite enforcement action, and is cooperating fully with the government.
“We extend our heartfelt sympathies to the families whose lives were disrupted and wish them the best,” Abrahams said.
http://www.cmakc.com/staff.asp#1
Jim Fallon
Jim Fallon brings a deep background of public relations expertise to a wide range of leading food system clients.
With more than 15 years of experience in public relations counseling, Jim helps clients anticipate, prepare for and respond to potential situations that could prove harmful to their overall reputation or threaten their freedom to operate. His experiences include guiding clients through major product recalls, helping clients respond to external threats, and helping clients navigate anti-trust allegations.
He earned a Bachelor of Science degree from Ball State University and a Master of Business Administration from Indiana Wesleyan University.
http://www.cmakc.com/about.asp
CMA is a leader in issues management, public relations, strategic facilitation and marketing communications specializing in food and agriculture. Founded in March, 2004, CMA quickly established solid relationships throughout the food chain.
Over time, CMA's professional integrity and demonstrated abilities in public relations, strategic planning, group facilitation and public speaking has strengthened these relationships and provided opportunities to overcome some of the most challenging issues in the industry.
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http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080516/NEWS/805160377
Jim Fallon, a Kansas City-based public relations consultant and spokesman for Agriprocessors Inc., on Thursday said company managers were cooperating with authorities but did not know whether to expect charges. The company, he said, was also scrambling to hire replacement employees through advertisements and new applicants. He said he did not know how many replacement workers would be hired.
"It's just way too early to try to pin a number on it," Fallon said. "They're bringing in new workers every day."
http://www.wcfcourier.com/articles/2008/05/16/news/breaking_news/doc482d46af0a993856043553.txt
ReplyDeleteFriday, May 16, 2008 6:29 AM CDT
Woman indicted in Missouri MySpace suicide case
By LINDA DEUTSCH, AP Special Correspondent
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- A Missouri woman was indicted Thursday for her alleged role in perpetrating a hoax on the online social network MySpace against a 13-year-old neighbor who committed suicide.
Lori Drew of suburban St. Louis, who allegedly helped create a MySpace account in the name of someone who didn't exist to convince Megan Meier she was chatting with a 16-year-old boy named Josh Evans, was charged with conspiracy and fraudulently gaining access to someone else's computer.
Megan hanged herself at home in October 2006, allegedly after receiving a dozen or more cruel messages, including one stating the world would be better off without her.
Salvador Hernandez, assistant agent in charge of the Los Angeles FBI office, called the case heart-rending.
"The Internet is a world unto itself. People must know how far they can go before they must stop. They exploited a young girl's weaknesses," Hernandez said. "Whether the defendant could have foreseen the results, she's responsible for her actions."
Drew was charged with one count of conspiracy and three counts of accessing protected computers without authorization to get information used to inflict emotional distress on the girl.
Drew has denied creating the account or sending messages to Megan.
Her attorney, Jim Briscoe, did not immediately return messages seeking comment on Thursday.
A man who opened the door at the Drew family home in Dardenne Prairie, Mo., on Thursday said the family had no comment.
Megan's mother, Tina Meier, told The Associated Press she believed media reports and public outrage helped move the case forward for prosecution.
"I'm thrilled that this woman is going to face charges that she has needed to face since the day we found out what was going on, and since the day she decided to be a part of this entire ridiculous stunt," she said.
Megan's father, Ron Meier, 38, said he began to cry "tears of joy" when he heard of the indictment. The parents are now separated, which Tina Meier has said stemmed from the circumstances of their daughter's death.
Tina Meier has acknowledged Megan was too young to have a MySpace account under the Web site's guidelines, but she said she had been able to closely monitor the account. Meier's family has also acknowledged that Megan was also sending mean messages before her death.
Megan was being treated for attention deficit disorder and depression, her family has said. Meier has said Drew knew Megan was on medication.
MySpace issued a statement saying it "does not tolerate cyberbullying" and was cooperating fully with the U.S. attorney.
U.S. Attorney Thomas P. O'Brien said this was the first time the federal statute on accessing protected computers has been used in a social-networking case. It has been used in the past to address hacking.
"This was a tragedy that did not have to happen," O'Brien said at a Los Angeles press conference.
Both the girl and MySpace are named as victims in the case, he said.
MySpace is a subsidiary of Beverly Hills-based Fox Interactive Media Inc., which is owned by News Corp. The indictment noted that MySpace computer servers are located in Los Angeles County.
Due to juvenile privacy rules, the U.S. attorney's office said, the indictment refers to the girl as M.T.M.
FBI agents in St. Louis and Los Angeles investigated the case, Hernandez said.
Each of the four counts carries a maximum possible penalty of five years in prison.
Drew will be arraigned in St. Louis and then moved to Los Angeles for trial.
The indictment says MySpace members agree to abide by terms of service that include, among other things, not promoting information they know to be false or misleading; soliciting personal information from anyone under age 18 and not using information gathered from the Web site to "harass, abuse or harm other people."
Drew and others who were not named conspired to violate the service terms from about September 2006 to mid-October that year, according to the indictment. It alleges they registered as a MySpace member under a phony name and used the account to obtain information on the girl.
Drew and her coconspirators "used the information obtained over the MySpace computer system to torment, harass, humiliate, and embarrass the juvenile MySpace member," the indictment charged.
The indictment contends they committed or aided in a dozen "overt acts" that were illegal, including using a photograph of a boy that was posted without his knowledge or permission.
They used "Josh" to flirt with Megan, telling her she was "sexi," the indictment charged.
Around Oct., 7, 2006, Megan was told "Josh" was moving away, prompting the girl to write: "aww sexi josh ur so sweet if u moved back u could see me up close and personal lol."
Several days later, "Josh" urged the girl to call and added: "i love you so much."
But on or about Oct. 16, "Josh" wrote to the girl and told her "in substance, that the world would be a better place without M.T.M. in it," according to the indictment.
The girl hanged herself the same day, and Drew and the others deleted the information in the account, the indictment said.
Last month, an employee of Drew, 19-year-old Ashley Grills, told ABC's "Good Morning America" she created the false MySpace profile but Drew wrote some of the messages to Megan.
Grills said Drew suggested talking to Megan via the Internet to find out what Megan was saying about Drew's daughter, who was a former friend.
Grills also said she wrote the message to Megan about the world being a better place without her. The message was supposed to end the online relationship with "Josh" because Grills felt the joke had gone too far.
"I was trying to get her angry so she would leave him alone and I could get rid of the whole MySpace," Grills told the morning show.
Megan's death was investigated by Missouri authorities, but no state charges were filed because no laws appeared to apply to the case.
http://www.wcfcourier.com/articles/2008/05/15/news/top_story/10339616.txt
ReplyDeleteTwo cellular phones, three hours of calling and Gabay Menahn wasn't getting anywhere.
Menahn, of Postville, paced nervously beside his SUV parked across from the National Cattle Congress fairgrounds as he attempted to get a hold of anyone who could help release Moshe Reinitz.
Reinitz, an Israeli national, was administratively arrested Monday along with 390 people at the Agriprocessors plant during a raid by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The raid is leaving many like Menahn trying to find out ways to lend help to the arrestees while coping with their own problems.
Reinitz's arrest caused his wife to be hospitalized for a nervous breakdown and left Postville's Jewish community to care for their children, Menahn said.
He questioned the ICE stance that agents were taking humanitarian concerns into account during their actions.
"This is one humane case they're ignoring," he said.
Reinitz was visiting the plant when the raid occurred, Menahn said. Reinitz was in the midst of applying for a green card based on a special expertise with glass, he said.
ICE officials told friends and family members that because he was in the plant, he was working.
"He was not working," Menahn said. "... It's a big plant, a lot of people visit."
The agriprocessor plant re-opened Tuesday, and company officials said they hoped to hire workers to cover the shortage caused by the raid. Arnold said ICE agents finished executing their warrant Monday night and planned no further law enforcement actions.
Menahn and a friend spun their wheels for hours trying everyone they could talk with, then a breakthrough. They began talking with a sympathetic ICE agent named Don Robinson. He told the pair that if they could get Reinitz an attorney, he'd be out an in a hour.
"That's good news, huh," Menahn said.
By 9:30 p.m., Moshe Reinitz was released. But many more still waited to hear their fates.
Are Weissmandel and the OU going to make the ridiculous claim they had no idea Rubashkin had 13 year old children working on the kill floor?
ReplyDeleteBoog,
ReplyDeleteWhoa. Did you not notice that I said I wouldn't be repudiating most of what you said. The companies that I've worked for have bigger nisoyanus than whatever gets turned up or out in Yeshivas. I won't go into the pritzus of corporate America, it's too well known. For your information I spent 16 years of my life in the public education system and another 10 teaching in it. I'm not a yeshiva graduate. I can tell you of the horror stories that occurred in my high school between teachers and students and between teachers and teachers in full view of students. Your belief that that is a better system, if you believe that, is far off base.
Do environmental influences play a major part in our Jewish lives. Yes. Did the Brisker Rov state that what ever happens in the university in Paris will be in the Yeshiva in Lithuania six months later. Yes. Does the manhig have the power to police your actions and make you do something against what you are hell bent on doing? NO.
I still maintain that change starts with the reflection in the mirror and only you can change yourself. Now I don't pretend to know you from a hole in the wall, you seem to be pretty realistic and centered. You're articulate. You have to know that the majority of the mechanichim wouldn't have jobs in chinuch save for the population explosion and the desire of people to pull their kids away from the pritzus in the public schools. Forty to sixty years ago - yeshiva was your father and the local shul Rabbi who taught you for 2 hours after you finished your public school education. Then you didn't worry about being knifed in a hallway or invite to a "party" in the staircase.
Bender is not the problem, he is a component of the larger problem which, in my opinion, is giving the kvetch benchers jobs they are suited for at all.
So here is a question for you, you say that corporate America would have dumped these guys for there poor performance. Corporate America gives poor CEOs major packages and consulting jobs after they are "fired". The company that I was with, that downsized a considerable portion of staff, fired the chief executive with a severance package that included a ten year consulting contract at over $1 million per year. Bender would love to be fired with that kind of kick in the rear.
Chinuch has been painted a sacrifice, a labor of love. In reality it has become a nepotistic and despotic haven for ne'er do wells who wouldn't be able to make it as janitors. Who's at fault? Go to the mirror.
I am shocked and dismayed that UOJ has not appeared to notice that Justice Scalia is speaking for the Agudahfresser dinner.
ReplyDeletePlease, please, please, while it is common knowledge that Scalia went to law school with Nat Lewin, isn't it at least possible being he is a judge that he has a sense of justice?
Couldn't we petition him as victims of the crimes covered up by the Agudah, or "get to him" through somebody, to at least make him aware of the terrible pain his participation with this criminal organization is to its victims. Who knows, maybe he himself is a survivor or has a loved one who is a survivor. I believe he is a Catholic and could easily see the similarities between the horrible abuse of power and carnage done by the authorities in that religion, and what the Agudah has been doing. How do we get to him FAST! We have only 2 weeks to do it.
If we could not get him to boycott, could you imagine the kiddush Hashem of even better:
He addresses the problem (without even mentioning names or pointing fingers) of child abuse in religious communities and the need for organizations like Agudah to stop enabling and start confronting. Can you imagine the humiliation of Avi Shafran, et.al. being lectured to by a goy on the importance of every single jewish child, and their safety? What would it take to bring this about?
Why doesn't anyone talk about what goes on in south Florida? Is there a conspiracy of silence?
ReplyDeleteThe OU has no shame - They put their seal of approval on the Rubashkin scam of GLATT KOSHER POULTRY!
ReplyDeleteFrom The Forward:
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Rabbi Seth Mandel, the Orthodox Union’s head of kosher slaughter, estimated that AgriProcessors produces around 55% of glatt kosher beef sold in the United States and that the plant in Postvillle produces 85% of AgriProcessors beef. The company also produces the greatest share of GLATT kosher poultry on the market.
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/oil-closes-above-126-goldman/story.aspx?guid=%7B5080FEC5-AE6C-4D0A-A362-9511754C0F6A%7D&dist=msr_13
ReplyDeleteOil ends above $126 on increased price forecast
Goldman Sachs raises oil-price view to $141; retail gasoline soars to record
By Myra P. Saefong & Polya Lesova, MarketWatch
Last update: 4:25 p.m. EDT May 16, 2008
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/cheap-oil-may-history-100/story.aspx?guid=%7B91EC5E18%2DBC7A%2D4AD8%2D96DD%2DB1CE4DED2543%7D&dist=TNMostRead
ReplyDeleteThe oil market hasn't had a lot of time to get used to triple-digit prices, let alone the idea that $100 a barrel just might be the new price floor and the concept that cheap oil is a thing of the past.