 |
| MARVIN SCHICK |
UOJ ARCHIVES OCTOBER 2008 (10 LONG YEARS AGO)
Excerpts of The Forward's interviews with David Zwiebel and Marvin Schick...
....“Until not terribly long ago, the issue was very much in the shadows,” said David Zwiebel, director of government affairs and general counsel of Agudath Israel of America. “The fact that there were isolated reports here and there of cases arising in yeshiva settings, it was known, but they were very isolated.”
“Sometimes they were dealt with correctly and sometimes incorrectly,” Zwiebel added, “but the severity of the problem and the possible magnitude were really things that most people, including myself, just didn’t understand.”
Marvin Schick, who has written extensively about Jewish affairs in his position as president of four Orthodox Jewish day schools, one of which is ultra-Orthodox, believes that Orthodox Jews at large are following the trends of larger society. Because there is greater attention being paid to this problem in the secular world, the Orthodox community is just following suit, he said.
Asked whether more people are now realizing that sexual abuse is a real problem, Schick said: “I don’t think [that’s] fair. I’ve been president of four schools for 36 years, and there hasn’t been a single situation.”
He also warned against the possibility of false accusations, which could ruin the lives of those unjustly punished.
*****
My Turn:
From the distance, Zweibel and Schick seem like ordinary Homo sapiens. I do not believe that they run around naked at night in the streets of New York - or go dumpster-hopping for their lunch --- or urinate on fire hydrants... (I could be wrong on this last one.)
What did Zwiebel and the Agudath Israel do about the cases they were aware of? The cases that were handled improperly, did they intervene to right a horrible wrong? Did they apologize to Robert Kolker of New York Magazine for outright slander and character assassination? Will they publicly address the child-rape problem at this year's Agudah convention? Will they work with rabbis and lawmakers feverishly - to implement laws that will always put our childrens' safety first? Are they publicly going to admonish and even expel rabbis from their organization that knew and facilitated the child-rapist epidemic by covering-up for child-rapists?
Teach us O' wise ones! How were the cases that you claim were handled "correctly" --- tended to? Share with us O' great ones from 42 Broadway! How many cases were handled correctly? Where are the perpetrators? Are they still around kids? Are they being monitored by anyone? The last time I checked - the former rabbi employee of Torah Umesorah, who spent five years in jail for Internet predatory crimes against children - was up to his old tricks! Your Gedolim - what sayeth them? We want answers...! Your version of "trust daas Torah" is gone forever for the too few thinking Jews among us! We don't, and will never trust you - we despise you for the churban that flamed under your tenure!
The human condition means nothing to you loathesome frauds. Your values are all tied to symbols, meaningless rituals and manufactured hardships - eccentric posturing; - a herd of moving mouths with no meaningful words.
Will Shmuel Kaminetzky publicly apologize for sending Moshe Eisemann from Philadelphia to Baltimore's Ner Israel some forty years ago - after numerous complaints from students that Eisemann, allegedly, not only fondled them, but actually "penetrated" them and had oral sex with students? Will he apologize along with his son in-law Tzvi Berkowitz of Ner Israel, for the child-rape of God knows how many students in Ner Israel over that forty year period?
Will the Agudath Israel expel Eisemann from their sister organization - Vaad L'Hatzolas Nidchei Yisroel - that sends Eisemann around the globe - promoting "Torah values" to unsuspecting teens? Will they follow the lead of the Yeshiva of Berlin, Germany ---- that terminated Eisemann " without government intervention" - knowing that a "shmua or verified rumor" is enough for them to keep Eisemann away from kids?
Let me get to Mr.RJJ - Marvin Schick - the lawyer putz who is in love with himself. You're a pathetic shyster excuse of a human being. This is not the time to play word games! There's a huge difference between not being aware of child-rape incidents and "never having any incidents."
Hey Marv, - by now you know that 95% of child-rape victims never come forward, and I'll take an educated guess - backed up by hard data, that in the Orthodox Jewish community, that number rises to greater than 99%!
Both of you - Schick and Zwiebel - had an opportunity - erev Yom Kippur - to - at the very least - acknowledge the pain of the victims and their families, and promise to "get involved" in addressing this most painful subject. Instead --- more of the same!
I'm deleting from my machzor (prayer book) and my tefillot - "k'rachem av al banim kein t'rachem Hashem aleinu" - I would not want the mercy, that we as a nation, extended to our children - bestowed by God on us!
We've failed our children - we've self-poisoned our genetic bloodline as a nation of baishonim and rachmonim - We have no right to expect God to extend us any kindness, more than we ourselves have extended to our children - His children - the future of the Jewish people.
Getzel Rubashkin Sockpuppet Comments Found Defending Agriprocessors, NCSY-OU, and Baruch Lanner. Comments date back to early 2007.
ReplyDeleteFirst, the Astroturfing uncovered by the AP. In a wonderful piece of investigative work, the AP outed Getzel Rubashkin, the son of "former" Agri CEO and current
Agriprocessors VP Sholom Mordechai Rubashkin.
Getzel – who frequently commented here while claiming not be an an official representative of Agriprocessors, even though he spent hours during his workday commenting here and on other websites – and two friends anonymously created the fraudulent "grassroots" blog Postville Voices.
There is one clear mistake in this AP report. Getzel claims to work at Agriprocessors "part time." Yet, when commenting on this blog Getzel clearly wrote that he was a manager at the company and was able to devote so much time to blog commenting because he was judged on how much work he completed each day, not how much time he actually spent working.
I think the truth is, Getzel Rubashkin was paid by Agriprocessors to do his blogging, just as it paid him to do his "managing."
Getzel also admitted in comments left on this blog to using two different computers in the plant, one in his department and one in his father's office. Another, anonymous commenter claiming to be an Agriprocessors employee wrote that Getzel used a computer in his father's office all day, almost every day.
I can tell you that when I tracked those comments a couple months ago, almost all of them came from the same IP address – presumably the one linked to Sholom M. Rubashkin.
But that is not all.
I can also tell you that several pro-Agriprocessors comments were left early in the Agriprocessors immigration raid scandal from that same IP address, meaning from that same computer. Those pro-Agriprocessors comments were left by "John." Not surprisingly, John's comments sound uncannily like Getzel Rubashkin.
The identifying information "John" left in that post leads to several other IPs with the same exact identifying information, most shared by "John" comments, as well. One of those comments, left on Yochanan Lavie's guest post about his days in NCSY under now-convicted child abuser Rabbi Baruch Lanner is especially noteworthy:
Our history? I think this was an issue of a few people, its not like Mr. Lanner was rehired by ncsy so everyone needs to be reminded of what he did. Rather we must hope that he has been rehabilitated, and as JEWS
give him that chance to do teshuva.
Posted by: proudjew |January 09, 2008 at 10:14 AM
Here is Getzel as Getzel, followed by Getzel as John and Peterson. Please click to enlarge:
Here is Getzel as John, proudJew, Bitzy and Anon posting via Blackberry. Identifying information left as John here matches the same identifying information left as John above. Please click to enlarge:
These are only a few out of many examples.
There are also comments as "John" questioning the assertion that KAJ dropped its supervision of Agriprocessors due to kashrut reasons and otherwise defending Agriprocessors.
Some of you told me you were impressed, at least in the beginning, with Getzel's "honesty." My response was that you were being duped. I think you can see that now.
You know Getzel Rubashkin sockpuppeted on this website (and perhaps others) just like Agriprocessors' PR firm 5WPR.
If Getzel isn't behind Agri-"facts", then what about Mendel Rubashkin who recently promoted that propaganda website here?
ReplyDeleteI wonder if there is an electronic trail that leads to Chabad of Brandon, Florida or other computers like Chabad of Colonie, NY, Moishe Rubashkin controlled entities like the CHJCC or any of the Balkanys.
If anyone recalls, Getzel would always dodge questions over the issue of sockpuppeting by 5Wankers Torossian / Engelmayer.
Shmarya should compare notes with the JTA to see where else Getzel has been typing away.
The Peterson posts and the upper case John posts were from the same IP as a Getzel Rubashkin post. Also, the style of John and Peterson are very similar to Getzel's. Notice that once he started posting as himself, John and Peterson stopped posting. If Getzel never used a blackberry to post, then how did John and Peterson get access to your computer? Perhaps these are other Agri employess, perhaps Chaim Abrahams or Heshey, or perhaps Getzel's dad???
Suspicious Postville Car Fires Thought To be Arson – Former Agriprocessors Workers Set to Testify Against Agriprocessors Targeted
ReplyDeleteThe fires happened early Saturday morning in the RO-KA Acres area of Postville. Two cars were burned. One allegedly had the remnants of a rag stuffed in its open gas tank.
RO-KA Acres is where a lot of the women wearing ankle tracking bracelets live.
I'll post more on this if and when it becomes available or is confirmed, as the case may be.
http://www.sos.state.ia.us/AnnualReports/AR93/Final/VOLUME%20985K/A93986891.tif
ReplyDeleteYossi Gourarie listed as an Agri director in 1993 and was seemingly kicked out a year or two later.
http://www.sos.state.ia.us/CorpImages/VOLUMEW390K/W00392693.tif
Agri was dissolved in 2004 by Gov. Chet Culver after they failed to file a biennial report as required by law.
http://www.sos.state.ia.us/ucc_images/VOLUME%20F%2025K/F027813.tif
Federal tax lien against Agri in 2002 for almost $88,000
http://www.sos.state.ia.us/ucc_images/VOLUME%20F%2025K/F028098.tif
Another Federal tax lien for over $260,000
http://www.sos.state.ia.us/ucc_images/VOLUME%20F%2025K/F028155.tif
3rd Federal tax lien for almost $12,000
http://www.sos.state.ia.us/Search/UCC/search.aspx?fed
No wonder GE needed Warren Buffett to shore them up with billions of dollars. It seems that all of Agri's equipment is financed / leased with GE Capital as one of the lenders.
http://www.sos.state.ia.us/ucc_images/VOLUME%20X135K/X137772-8.tif
As recently as August 2008, National City Bank provided Agri with financing. Seems like a good stock to short when the SEC restrictions end!
UOJ, I think anyone with a heart ought to boycott all Agudah shuls. Don't give them a bloody penny, cancel your subscription to Coalition, and let them know where they can go!
ReplyDeleteNEW YORK -- A New York rabbi was arrested early Monday on federal charges involving sexual abuse of a minor, WNBC.com has learned.
ReplyDeleteRabbi Israel Weingarten was arrested by FBI agents at his Rockland County home in Monsey, N.Y. and is expected to appear in federal court in Brooklyn later today, law enforcement sources said.
Weingarten is named in a five-count federal indictment obtained by the US Attorney's office in the Eastern District of New York following an investigation by the FBI, sources said.
Weingarten could face life in prison if he is convicted of the charges contained in the indictment, sources said.
More details about the indictment and investigation are expected to be released later today by the US Attorney's office in Brooklyn.
NEW YORK -- A New York rabbi was arrested early Monday on federal charges involving sexual abuse of a minor, WNBC.com has learned.
ReplyDeleteRabbi Israel Weingarten was arrested by FBI agents at his Rockland County home in Monsey, N.Y. and is expected to appear in federal court in Brooklyn later today, law enforcement sources said.
Weingarten is named in a five-count federal indictment obtained by the US Attorney's office in the Eastern District of New York following an investigation by the FBI, sources said.
Weingarten could face life in prison if he is convicted of the charges contained in the indictment, sources said.
More details about the indictment and investigation are expected to be released later today by the US Attorney's office in Brooklyn.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/06/business/06markets.html?em=&pagewanted=print
ReplyDeleteOctober 6, 2008
Financial Crises Spread in Europe
By CARTER DOUGHERTY, NELSON SCHWARTZ and FLOYD NORRIS
This article was reported by Carter Dougherty, Nelson Schwartz and Floyd Norris and written by Mr. Norris.
European nations scrambled on Sunday night to prevent a growing credit crisis from bringing down major banks and alarming savers as troubles in financial markets spread around the world, accelerating economic downturns on three continents.
The German government moved to guarantee all private savings accounts in the country on Sunday, hoping to reassure depositors who had grown nervous as efforts to bail out a large German lender and a major European financial company failed.
Late Sunday, it was disclosed that new bailouts had been arranged for both of those companies, Hypo Real Estate, the German lender, and Fortis, a large banking and insurance company based in Belgium but active across much of the Continent.
Jean Pisani-Ferry, director of the Bruegel research group in Brussels, said Europe confronted “our first real financial crisis, and it’s not just any crisis. It’s a big one.”
The European Central Bank has aggressively lent money to banks as the crisis has grown. It had resisted lowering interest rates, but signaled on Thursday that it might cut rates soon. The extra money, aimed at ensuring that banks would have adequate access to cash, has not reassured savers or investors, and European stock markets have performed even worse than the American markets.
In Iceland, government officials and banking chiefs were discussing a possible rescue plan for the country's commercial banks. In Berlin, Chancellor Angela Merkel and her finance minister, Peer Steinbrück, appeared before television cameras to promise that all bank deposits would be protected, although it was not clear whether legislation would be needed to make that promise good.
Mindful of the rising public anger at the use of public money to buttress the business of high-earning bankers, Mrs. Merkel promised a day of reckoning for them as well. “We are also saying that those who engaged in irresponsible behavior will be held responsible,” she said. “The government will ensure that. We owe it to taxpayers.”
Stock markets fell sharply in early trading on Monday in Asia on growing fears about the health of European banks and the resilience of the global economy.
The Nikkei 225 index dropped 3.4 percent in Tokyo on Monday, the Kospi index in Seoul fell 3.7 percent and the Standard and Poor’s/Australian Stock Exchange 200 index in Sydney declined 3.3 percent. The events in Berlin and Brussels underscored the failure of Europe’s case-by-case approach to restoring confidence in the Continent’s increasingly jittery banking sector. A European summit meeting Saturday did little to calm worries.
President Nicolas Sarkozy of France and his counterparts from Germany, Britain and Italy vowed to prevent a Lehman-like bankruptcy in Europe but they did not offer an American-style bailout package.
The crisis has underlined the difficulty of taking concerted action in Europe because its economies are far more integrated than its governing structures.
“We are not a political federation,” Jean-Claude Trichet, the president of the European Central Bank, said. “We do not have a federal budget.”
Last week, Ireland moved to guarantee both deposits and other liabilities at six major banks. There was grumbling in London and Berlin about the move giving those banks an unfair advantage. But Germany proposed its deposit guarantee Sunday after Britain raised its guarantee to £50,000, or almost $90,000, from £35,000.
Unlike in the United States, where deposits are fully guaranteed up to a limit of $250,000 — a figure that was raised from $100,000 last week — deposits in most European countries have been only partially guaranteed, sometimes by groups of banks rather than governments. In Germany, the first 90 percent of deposits up to 20,000 euros, or about $27,000, was guaranteed.
The Paris meeting produced a promise that European leaders would work together to halt the financial crisis and reassure nervous investors, but even before the meeting began it was becoming clear that two bailouts announced the week before had not succeeded and that a major Italian bank might be in trouble. That bank, Unicredit, announced plans on Sunday to raise as much as 6.6 billion euros, or $9 billion, in capital.
Fortis, which only a week ago received 11.2 billion euros from the governments of the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg, was unable to continue its operations. On Friday, the Dutch government seized its operations in that country, and Sunday night the Belgian government helped to arrange for BNP-Paribas, the French bank, to take over what was left of the company.
In Berlin, the government arranged a week ago for major banks to lend 35 billion euros to Hypo, but that fell apart when the banks concluded that more money would be needed. Late Sunday, the government said a 50 billion euro package had been arranged, with the government and other banks participating.
The credit crisis began in the United States, a fact that has led European politicians to claim superiority for their country’s financial systems, in contrast to what Silvio Berlusconi, Italy’s prime minister, called the “speculative capitalism” of the United States. On Saturday, Gordon Brown, the British prime minister, said the crisis “has come from America,” and Mr. Berlusconi bemoaned the lack of business ethics that had been exposed by the crisis.
Many of the European banks’ problems have stemmed from bad loans in Europe, and Fortis got into trouble in part by borrowing money to make a major acquisition.
Russian Market Drops $20%.
ReplyDeleteLet me guess ... did VIN censor his name because he's from the same chassidus?
ReplyDeletehttp://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=news/local&id=6434487
58-year-old Israel Weingarten will appear before Magistarte Judge Azrack at 2 p.m. this afternoon in Brooklyn Fderal Court.
He was accused in a five-count federal indictment of travel with intent to engage in illegal sexual conduct with a minor.
Weingarten, who is a member of of the Satmar sect, was arrested by FBI agents this morning at his Monsey home.
Paulson's involvement in this massive fraud is evident by hiring a Goldman Sachs banker to administer the bailout!
ReplyDelete-----------------
Official: Kashkari to be tapped to head bailout By MARTIN CRUTSINGER, AP Economics Writer
Mon Oct 6, 2008
WASHINGTON - An official says the administration has decided to pick a key Treasury Department official to be the interim head of its $700 billion rescue effort for financial institutions.
The official said Monday that Neel Kashkari, Treasury's assistant secretary for international affairs, will soon be announced as the interim head of Treasury's new Office of Financial Stability. The official asked not to be identified by name because the selection has not been announced publicly.
The 35-year-old Kashkari is a former Goldman Sachs Inc. banker, the investment giant once headed by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. The new office was created by the emergency legislation enacted Friday to fund the largest government bailout in history.
CHAPTZEM EXCLUSIVE - Heimishe child molester thrown into jail after court hearing
ReplyDeleteA convicted Heimishe child molester was thrown into jail on Riker's Island following a court hearing. The man, who was previously sentenced to seven years in prison, was supposed to have a hearing regarding his sentence in front of a new judge, with whom he hoped to have a better chance. The man was shocked when he ended up appearing in front of the same judge as in his previous court proceedings. The child molester was even more shocked when the judge asked him what he was still doing out of jail and then ordered him to be held there until his next hearing in November. The molester was then handcuffed and taken out by court officers and sent straight to Riker's Island.
Can anyone verify what the blogs are claiming about Weingarten?
ReplyDeleteThat he worked at YTT with Yudi Kolko.
That he was molesting his own daughters and rabbonim in Monsey have known about it for 6 years.
That the FBI investigation took 5 years to conclude.
In Belgium, he ran his own Satmar school, and in the United States in 2002 he was employed by the Yeshiva and Mesivta Torah Temimah, an elementary and secondary school in Brooklyn.
ReplyDeleteAT NO TIME ... (snort), (burp), (fart), (cough, cough)
ReplyDeleteThe trial of tycoon Arcadi Gaydamak starts today in Paris on charges of illegal arms trafficking, fraud, money laundering, fraudulent receipt and tax evasion. The indictment also states that Gaydamak and his former partner Pierre Falcone gave perks to senior members of the French government to promote their business deals.
ReplyDeleteAs far as is known, Gaydamak will not appear in court, although in the past he has said he would. Gaydamak claims that he is a victim of French political power struggles.
The charges allege that mainly from 1993 to 1995, Falcone and Gaydamak used various intermediaries and sold weapons and ammunition worth $790 million from Russia and Slovakia to Angola, during that country's civil war. They also allegedly established a branch of the Slovak arms company ZTS OSOS without the necessary permits.
Falcone, who severed his ties with Gaydamak several years ago after financial disagreements, told Haaretz he had not decided whether to appear for the trial.
Around 40 former senior French officials are to stand trial, among them former interior minister Jean-Christophe Mitterand - the son of former president Francois Mitterand - and General Jean-Charles Marchiani, a senior member of the French security services.
From the indictment, sources and documents in Israel, it appears that Gaydamak had connections with intelligence officials in various countries. One of the defendants in the current case, Jean-Bernard Curial, is quoted by the indictment as saying that Falcone told him the arms company had connections with the KGB or was owned by former KGB officers "who knew Gaydamak well, as a former KGB colonel."
GSC, a security consulting firm established by Gaydamak in partnership with former Mossad chief Danny Yatom, and senior Mossad officer Avi Dagan, operated in Israel until 2002.
Police sources told Haaretz that investigators for the Israel Police's international crimes unit had the impression that Gaydamak had connections with the defense establishment and that the former head of security in the Defense Ministry, Yehiel Horev, had tried to intervene in various money-laundering investigations by the unit into Gaydamak.
Horev confirmed that there had been contact with the police about Gaydamak, but denied any attempts to interfere in investigations.
It is all in the FBI's court filings. No need to confirm it is daylight outside! Good grief, what the hell will it take for people to realize that our inaction and resultant indirect support of molesters has made our communities a virtual incubator of rape, incest and molestation maniacs.
ReplyDeleteHere is my solution pending rabbi UOJ's hashgocha and PETA's endorsement:
Erev Yom Kippur take one local rabbi (Arizal prefers an agudah colored one) twist and hold his legs in hog tied fashion (till he sqwaucks like a ...) twirl 'em 3 times around your head (watch he dosn't poop all over you!) drop him on the floor, stomp him to an inch of his life then haul what's left to an overworked and overharried shoichet and now the best part...........DO PISSY HADAM!
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=ameVTeN87IWs&refer=us
ReplyDeleteNational City Corp. tumbled 35 percent to $2.28 for the biggest drop in the S&P 500.
Sir Vivor,
ReplyDeleteWhy only kapparos? It should be mayseh Azazel over a cliff.
It's poshut that National City Bank took the biggest hit.
ReplyDeleteEveryone read on UOJ before the market opened this morning that they lent money to Rubashkin.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/quote?ticker=ge
ReplyDeleteYou're not kidding. Even after I shored up GE with billions of dollars, looked what happened to the stock today after UOJ mentioned they also provide financing to Rubashkin!
Why doesn't Chaptzem name the Creep? said...
ReplyDeleteCHAPTZEM EXCLUSIVE - Heimishe child molester thrown into jail after court hearing
A convicted Heimishe child molester was thrown into jail on Riker's Island following a court hearing. The man, who was previously sentenced to seven years in prison, was supposed to have a hearing regarding his sentence in front of a new judge, with whom he hoped to have a better chance. The man was shocked when he ended up appearing in front of the same judge as in his previous court proceedings. The child molester was even more shocked when the judge asked him what he was still doing out of jail and then ordered him to be held there until his next hearing in November. The molester was then handcuffed and taken out by court officers and sent straight to Riker's Island.
VEGH, MARTIN. AKA as Boorich Mordechai Vegg
Nisht tze gloyben.
ReplyDeleteUOJ mentions 2 companies provided me with loans and the Dow tanks down 750 points.
While we're on the topic,
ReplyDeleteKINGS Supreme Court
Docket 07860-2007
Defendant VEGH, MARTIN
Law Code and Code Section/Subsection
PL 260.10 01
Charge Detail
A Misdemeanor, 1 count, Arrest charge, Arraignment charge
Description: ACT MANR INJUR CHILD < 17
Indictment Count: 2
Disposition/Sentence
COVERED BY THE PLED TO CHARGE
Law Code and Code Section/Subsection
PL 130.80 1A
Charge Detail
D Felony, 1 count, Not an arrest charge, Not an arraignment charge
Description: COURSE SEX CONDUCT CHILD-2ND
Indictment Count: 4
Charge added to case on: September 19, 2007
Disposition/Sentence
PLED GUILTY
Law Code and Code Section/Subsection
PL 215.50 03
Charge Detail
A Misdemeanor, 1 count, Not an arrest charge, Not an arraignment charge
Description: CRIM CONTEMPT-2ND:DISOBEY CRT
Indictment Count: 6
Charge added to case on: September 19, 2007
Disposition/Sentence
COVERED BY THE PLED TO CHARGE
Law Code and Code Section/Subsection
PL 130.65 03 *** TOP CHARGE ***
Charge Detail
D Felony, 1 count, Not an arrest charge, Not an arraignment charge
Description: SX ABSE:SX CNTCT W/IND<11
Indictment Count: 1
Charge added to case on: September 19, 2007
Disposition/Sentence
COVERED BY THE PLED TO CHARGE
Law Code and Code Section/Subsection
PL 130.75 1A
Charge Detail
B Felony, 1 count, Not an arrest charge, Not an arraignment charge
Description: COURSE SEX CONDUCT CHILD-1ST
Indictment Count: 3
Charge added to case on: September 19, 2007
Disposition/Sentence
COVERED BY THE PLED TO CHARGE
Law Code and Code Section/Subsection
PL 260.10 01
Charge Detail
A Misdemeanor, 1 count, Not an arrest charge, Not an arraignment charge
Description: ACT MANR INJUR CHILD < 17
Indictment Count: 5
Charge added to case on: September 19, 2007
Disposition/Sentence
PLED GUILTY
Vegh is warming his ass in rikers together with Colmer. Does the Lord have a sense of humour or what?
ReplyDeleteMartin Vegh
ReplyDelete(718) 438-8936
1116 49th St, Brooklyn, NY 11219
(845) 796-1349
Beaver Lake Estates, Monticello, NY 12701
Vegh doesn't have to worry. I already called rabbonim to clear up any kashrus shaylos in the prison kitchen.
ReplyDeleteBurich Mordche Vegh is doch a mechubaddik gabbai. He let me daven for the omed many times in Bobover beis medresh.
ReplyDeleteIt says in the indictment that the "jane doe" originated in Bet Shemesh.
ReplyDeleteThis can't be so because there is no such activity with minors in Bet Shemesh or anywhere else for that matter.
We are the cornerstone of morality!
Oh, there's TWO guys I have to bail out of Riker's now?
ReplyDeleteWow, I think Fartscroll is going to be the first frum publishing house in history that's going to be distributing seforim from incarcerated mechabrim.
ReplyDeleteDoes anyone know when Leib Pinter gets sentenced?
Sheker vechuzuv!
ReplyDeletehttp://lohud.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081006/NEWS03/810060385/-1/SPORTS
Federal agents today arrested a Monsey-based rabbi on accusations that he had sex with a female relative over the course of a decade, starting when she was 9 years old.
FBI agents arrested Rabbi Israel Weingarten, 58, at his Monsey home this morning on a grand jury indictment, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office in Brooklyn.
Weingarten is charged with five federal counts, accusing him of traveling around the world to have sex with the minor and avoid being charged.
The indictment charges him with two counts of knowingly and intentionally transporting a minor in foreign commerce with the intent to engage in a sexual activity. He also is charged with three counts of knowingly and intentionally traveling in foreign commerce for the purpose of engaging in a sexual act with a minor.
If convicted at trial, Weingarten faces an estimated prison term of 168 to 210 months in prison, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.
Weingarten is accused of abusing the young girl on a weekly and sometimes daily basis in Belgium, Israel and the United States, according to documents filed with the U.S. District Court in Brooklyn.
The girl left her family and the Satmar Hasidic Jewish community in September 1999, when she was 18 years old, federal documents state.
Weingarten is accused of trying to kidnap her in 1999 from a family trying to protect her in England, according to the documents. He's accused of assaulting that rabbi and his wife, who were trying to protect the girl.
Weingarten, a married father of eight, teaches children for the Satmar Hasidic Jewish community, the documents said. He ran a Satmar school in Belgium and worked for religious elementary and secondary schools in Brooklyn.
U.S. Attorney Benton Campbell asked Judge Magistrate Joan M. Azrack to order Weingarten held without bail. In court papers, Campbell argued Weingarten was a flight risk and a danger to the witnesses and victim.
"He moved her to different countries in order to continue the abuse and to escape any threat that he would be apprehended as word of his abuse began to spread," Campbell wrote. "He has resorted to threats and violence to intimidate those who tried to protect the victim and other members of his family."
Leopold, the story is sheker within sheker. This is the last sentence of the article:
ReplyDelete"He has resorted to threats and violence to intimidate those who tried to protect the victim and other members of his family."
What kind of a Yid would act like that after children have been raped?
Hey maybe the next Fartscrolls will have a Parole Review instead of an Overview.
ReplyDeleteWhat a classy publisher.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article4888293.ece
ReplyDeleteStricken Iceland sends out financial SOS
Economy is in turmoil as currency collapses and inflation soars
Hildur Helga Sigurdardottir in Reykjavik and Peter Stiff
Iceland was seeking the financial help of the US and Scandinavian countries last night as politicians and businessmen scrambled to save the country’s economy.
Officials were locked in meetings for most of the weekend, with the Government hoping to come to some sort of resolution before stock markets open this morning. The country’s banking problems led to the nationalisation last week of Glitnir, one of its largest lenders, as depositors pulled out their funds.
Margo Jr. has been telling everyone that asks him, bifrat the Chassidishe oylem, that the Kolko story is 100% false.
ReplyDeleteThese Chassidishe dopes in yeshiva believe him and go back to New York to report to their parents that it's nisht emess because fat slob jr denied it.
Does UOJ have anymore hot tips about Rubashkin related stocks?
ReplyDeleteI want to jump around like a babboon on CNBC warning everyone about them.
Insurance giant The Hartford was on the verge of collapse until Allianz came along and pumped billions of dollars into them.
ReplyDeleteThe aguda Ra bonim have more important items to deal with then child molestation. Like Lipa schmeltzer and kosher cell phones.
ReplyDeleteThere is only one word to describe the bunch of them -
" V A N T Z E N "
PKC:AG:RJN
ReplyDeleteF.#2007R01082
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
EASTERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - X
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
- against - Cr. No. 08-571(JG)
ISRAEL WEINGARTEN,
Defendant.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - X
MEMORANDUM OF LAW IN SUPPORT OF
THE GOVERNMENT’S MOTION FOR A PERMANENT ORDER OF DETENTION
(Excerpts)
...
The government hereby moves for a permanent order of detention pursuant to the Bail Reform Act with respect to the
defendant ISRAEL WEINGARTEN. The defendant was indicted on August 18, 2008, in a five-count indictment. He is charged with two
counts of knowingly and intentionally transporting a minor in foreign commerce with the intent to engage in a sexual activity for which he could be charged with a criminal offense, pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 2423(a), and three counts of knowingly and
intentionally traveling in foreign commerce for the purpose of
engaging in a sexual act with a minor, pursuant to 18 U.S.C. §
2423(b). The defendant faces up to ten years in prison on each count.
If convicted at trial, based on a conservative estimate of the advisory Sentencing Guidelines, he faces a range of imprisonment
of 168-210 months.
...
Finally, the defendant poses a danger to other children in the SatMar community as well because he has a history of working in yeshivas for young children. In Belgium, he ran his own Sat Mar school, and in the United States in 2002 he was employed by the
Yeshiva and Mesivta Torah Temimah, an elementary and secondary school in Brooklyn.
Unless he is detained, it will be
difficult to prevent him from seeking such employment because the SatMar schools do not operate under governmental control....
Oh crap. I have to send another letter to YTT parents?
ReplyDeleteWhat? I should have to comment because Weingarten once taught at a Torah Umesorah affiliate for a year?
ReplyDeleteJump in the lake.
There's not even anyone still around the Agudah who still remembers him. It was AGES AGO in 2002.
There is no reason for the YTT Vaad Hahorim to meet as Rabbi Kolko informs us that Yisroel Weingarten is innocent.
ReplyDeleteBelsky just had a courier deliver some kind of unusual document.
ReplyDeleteWhat's a hazmana?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1067287/Jail-Catch-Me-If-You-Can-conman-thousands-posing-lawyer-businessman-Jewish-nobleman.html
ReplyDeleteJail for 'Catch Me If You Can' conman who made thousands by posing as lawyer, businessman and Jewish nobleman
By Chris Brooke
Last updated at 2:42 AM on 04th October 2008
No one knows his real name, but for a decade the master conman made fools out of businessmen and adoring women.
Like Leonardo DiCaprio's character in the film Catch Me If You Can, he evaded justice by using different aliases as he tricked his victims out of hundreds of thousands of pounds.
In Paris he was an international lawyer, in Monaco a rich businessman, in Brussels a dashing entrepreneur and elsewhere a Jewish member of the nobility.
He was finally caught in Britain in the guise of a U.S. secret service agent.
Using the name Rudiger Sloot, he was living with a woman from Whitby, North Yorkshire, who was fleeced of thousands.
When police brought him to book the conman said the name he used in Britain was Anthony De Clerck.
He pleaded guilty at York Crown Court to deception and perverting the course of justice.
De Clerck, who is thought to be 39, was jailed for two and a half years - but even now police admit they are not sure of his true name, age or place of birth.
The slim, 6ft-plus conman met the single mother from Whitby in a bar in Italy in 2004.
He pretended to be German and struck up a friendship with the woman who paid for everything because he claimed to have had his wallet stolen.
As Sloot said goodbye at the airport he talked her into handing over the rest of her cash, £250 in euros. When she got home he rang her pleading for more cash and she wired him £1,000.
Days later he turned up in Whitby and said he wanted to stay for a few weeks to get his finances sorted out.
She agreed, on the understanding he paid her back in full. He then persuaded her to buy a £13,000 BMW in her name.
She paid the deposit and he said he would look after the monthly payments.
Sloot told her he was working for the U.S. government at the Menwith Hill spy base and showed her a fake secret service photo ID.
He even borrowed £100 from her to buy her a Christmas present.
Police were finally called on March 23, 2005, when Sloot started a row by calling her a 'rich bitch'.
A check in Germany revealed his passport and driving licence to be fake.
And the U.S. secret service said it had employed no one called Sloot.
The conman was charged and bailed by Scarborough magistrates. He then disappeared.
Days later, German police told officers in Yorkshire they thought Sloot was a Peter Van Damme.
Interpol revealed Van Damme had been sent to a 'mental ward' in 2001 in Belgium after he claimed to be a management consultant promising to take over a catering firm in Brussels for £12.4million.
Posing as a businessman he had also sold fake shares for a fictitious Monaco company and promised a £270million bank guarantee for another firm.
During all these scams he would 'wheedle' sums varying between 'tens and hundreds of thousands' from his victims.
Late in 2005, the conman, using the name Chris Vermeersch, was arrested for drink-driving in Warwickshire. He skipped bail.
The trail then went cold until a man using the name De Clerck was arrested earlier this year.
He had been working as a hotel manager and was suspected of defrauding the owners out of nearly £100,000.
Jimmy Duncan, of Graythwaite Manor, near Windermere, said: 'He was the epitome of sophistication, or at least we thought he was. We thought he was a gentleman but he was a conman.'
De Clerck had used their debit card and bank account to buy himself a Rolls Royce and a Jaguar.
Fingerprints revealed De Clerck, Sloot, Van Damme and Vermeersch to be the same man.
After De Clerck was jailed last month, Sergeant Darrin Knight, of North Yorkshire Police, said: 'There was never any sign of remorse and he gave the impression that people deserved what they got.'
Nobody says it like you.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/california/la-me-nanny4-2008oct04,0,2538872.story
ReplyDeleteNanny accused of dumping children at unlicensed day care
L.A. officials say she told multiple parents in Hancock Park and Larchmont that she was taking their children to outside activities. Instead, she left them at a Hollywood apartment.
"OU position which separates kashrus issues from yashrus"
ReplyDeleteAfter the OU's RCA division was embarassed that their behavior with Rubashkin violates their own written policy, they came out with a shvache copycat of the Conservative "hechsher tzedek", except that it has even less bite.
The Agudah is also a disgrace for constantly dodging the issue to protect Rubashkin.
http://www.forward.com/articles/14316/
In the wake of a widely publicized initiative by the Conservative movement to link kashrut with Jewish ethics, the largest umbrella organization of Orthodox rabbis has announced that it will devise its own set of ethical guidelines for the kosher food industry.
On September 23, the Rabbinical Council of America, which serves as the rabbinic authority for the country’s largest kosher certifier, announced that it would create and publish a guide to Jewish ethics as applied to business in general and the kosher food industry in particular, and that it would urge companies to voluntarily commit to upholding those standards. A top RCA official said that his organization’s push was in response to allegations of worker mistreatment by the kosher meat giant Agriprocessors.
The RCA would then ask companies to agree to attempt to uphold the guidelines, and Herring said that the RCA could potentially publicize the companies that agree to do so — possibly even offering them a certifying label, as well. But he said that compliance would be voluntary, without any enforcement by the RCA.
The RCA has, to this point, avoided criticizing Agriprocessors over the labor allegations surrounding the company. After the Forward’s 2006 report, the RCA dispatched a rabbi to investigate the plant, but the organization kept its findings confidential. In August, RCA rabbis participated in an Agriprocessors-funded tour of the company’s Postville plant. The rabbis that went on the tour issued a statement saying that they found nothing wrong with the plant.
RCA officials said that while the new initiative was inspired by public concerns about Agriprocessors, it should not be taken as a comment on the company’s innocence or guilt.
“It’s very clearly on people’s minds, and we felt that since it’s on people’s minds, there should be a response,” said Rabbi Yaakov Wasser, a vice president of the RCA who was on the August tour of the slaughterhouse. “It should not be construed as comment on Agriprocessors.”
But Herring’s relatively benign stance on Hekhsher Tzedek is not universally shared in the Orthodox world. The day after the RCA announced its initiative, the ultra-Orthodox organization Agudath Israel released a statement savaging the Conservative initiative.
“Agudath Israel of America regards the Hekhsher Tzedek idea as misguided and misleading,” the statement said. “It rests upon, and will likely foster, a distorted understanding of kashrus, and a corruption of the halachic process itself.”
Agudath Israel spokesman Avi Shafran said he was also concerned about the RCA’s move to link secular law compliance and kosher certification.
“Insofar as it is aimed at kashrut certification in particular, it would seem to raise some of the same issues with which we take issue in our statement about ‘Hekhsher Tzedek,’” Shafran said in an e-mail to the Forward.
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/01/third-term-no-charm-historians-say/?hp
ReplyDeleteIf any mayor is identified with having a troubled third term it is Mayor Koch — if only, perhaps, because his third term was so recent (1986-1989). Racial turmoil, municipal scandal and the whiff of corruption plagued the third Koch term — so much so that at one point, as Mr. Koch noted in one of his many autobiographical books, he contemplated killing himself.
Mr. Koch was never personally implicated in any wrongdoing — but the ethical lapses around him devastated him nonetheless, said Jonathan Soffer, a historian with the Polytechnic Institute of New York University in Brooklyn who is writing a biography of Mr. Koch with his cooperation.
The scandals seemed to unfold, one after another, after Mr. Koch, a Democrat, began his third term at the start of 1986.
In 1986, the Queens borough president, Donald R. Manes, a friend of the mayor’s, committed suicide after it emerged that he was involved in significant corruption schemes involving the Parking Violations Bureau and other municipal fiefdoms. Mr. Manes was about to face federal indictment when he took his life.
In 1987, Bess Myerson, a former Miss America who had served as Mr. Koch’s cultural affairs commissioner, was indicted on charges of conspiracy, mail fraud and obstruction of justice. Her companion, Carl A. Capasso, was accused of bribing a judge, Hortense W. Gabel, by arranging a job in Ms. Myerson’s department for the judge’s daughter, Sukhreet Gabel.
Toras Eliyahu girls school has just posted bond for Israel Weingarten on the condition that he comes to Ramat Bet Shemesh and teach in their school.
ReplyDeleteTorah Temimah Rabbi Raped Own Daughter For Years
ReplyDeleteThe judge denied bail for Weingarten during his arraignment in Brooklyn Monday.
ReplyDeleteweingarten = satmar = suit against satmar principle in willy.
ReplyDeleteweingarten = YTT = Kolko
weingarten = Beit Shemesh = Kagan
All those who knew or suspected what weingarten was up to, be it in belgium, beit shemesh, KJ or Monsey, have a reckoning to make with g-d on yom kippur and owe the daughter an apology for which yom kippur does you the equivilant of farting in the air!
Paulson owes a lot to Goldman; 24 years almost made him a billionaire. An analyst told Bloomberg News that Goldman and Morgan Stanley may be the two "biggest beneficiaries" of the Bailout Bonanza: They've already "written down the value of their holdings." So they have much junk to dump on taxpayers, thanks to Paulson their, "inside man." And he wanted no oversight. With several former Goldman staffers working with him at Treasury now, you wonder: Did they give their old buddies early hints of the bailout?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/28/nyregion/28spitzer.html?sq=spitzer&st=cse&scp=4&pagewanted=print
ReplyDeleteFormer Gov. Eliot Spitzer was reading his newspaper on a recent Thursday morning when he was jolted by a comment made by his successor, David A. Paterson.
In the 22nd paragraph of a New York Times article on Aug. 21, Mr. Paterson said that aides to Mr. Spitzer had lacked experience in Albany, and added that the Spitzer administration’s management approach sometimes “just didn’t work.”
Mr. Spitzer grew upset, according to a senior aide to Mr. Paterson and another official. He picked up the phone, reached a Paterson aide, demanded a public apology from the governor and “issued threats, veiled and unveiled” against Mr. Paterson, said the aide, who insisted on anonymity because he did not want to anger either man.
No public apology was offered; Mr. Spitzer and Mr. Paterson have not spoken since June.
Six months have passed since Mr. Spitzer’s breathtakingly quick exodus from office after being implicated as a patron of a prostitution ring. One day, Eliot Laurence Spitzer was a national figure some saw destined for the White House; the next he was a target of ridicule.
Now, in interviews with friends and former aides, and through e-mail messages obtained through a Freedom of Information request by The New York Times, a picture emerges of Mr. Spitzer trying to focus on the future and his family, with the threat of criminal charges still hanging over him. He is working at his father’s real estate firm, and has discussed with friends whether to undertake charity, environmental or free legal work to try to rehabilitate his image.
But despite his efforts to move forward, Mr. Spitzer can be moved by flashes of anger, especially when it comes to what he views as his achievements and legacy, and he has faced an adjustment as he confronts life without the power he once wielded.
In June, he traveled with his three daughters and his wife, Silda Wall Spitzer, to Southeast Asia, where the family could enjoy time together far from New York and the prying media. But while the family was in Laos, news broke that the state’s highest court had thrown out most of the charges in the civil case that Mr. Spitzer, as state attorney general, had brought against Richard A. Grasso, the former chairman of the New York Stock Exchange, over Mr. Grasso’s $139.5 million compensation package.
Mr. Spitzer called a reporter back in New York — though it was the middle of the night there, given the time difference — to criticize the ruling and suggest people to call who would back up his view.
On Sept. 18, approached by a reporter outside his father’s Fifth Avenue office, he lamented the federal rescue of American International Group, the giant insurer, and defended the aggressive steps he had taken to force the ouster of its chairman, Maurice R. Greenberg, in 2005 amid an accounting scandal.
He said his political demise shouldn’t diminish his achievements. “I committed my sins and I’ve paid for them,” he said. Then he added, referring to A.I.G.: “But I was right.”
Asked how he was doing, he shrugged and responded, with resignation and a degree of joylessness: “Making money is making money,” before heading inside the building. He declined to speak further.
Mr. Spitzer’s daily routine, once scrutinized by a roving pack of reporters, aides and cameras, has taken on a more quotidian feel. He sometimes jogs in Central Park before work, buys his own cup of coffee, drops his daughters at the school bus and hails his own cab to the Fifth Avenue office building that houses his family’s real estate business.
It wasn’t like this when the news first broke in March. Then there were gestures of comfort from the powerful inhabitants of Mr. Spitzer’s world. Former Vice President Al Gore reached out to him, as did Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico, according to e-mail records. (After he resigned from office, Mr. Spitzer’s e-mail communications with public officials were no longer considered privileged, and thus were subject to public records requests.)
Prosecutors have not signaled whether they will charge the former governor.
Mr. Spitzer considered starting a real estate investment fund, though it does not appear those discussions went far. The Spitzer real estate group has not been particularly active in some time, in part because of the advancing age of his father, who has Parkinson’s disease. Bernard Spitzer was hospitalized for Parkinson’s after his son’s resignation in March, but has since been seen in public in much improved condition.
In recent weeks, the Spitzers’ business created two new limited liability companies, Spitzer Holdings and Spitzer Realty. Jeffrey A. Moerdler, the lawyer of record on the filings, declined to discuss them.
It's obvious why Weingarten chose to teach at YTT when he came back to the States. He knew their history of protecting child molesters and he felt that he can ply his trade with immunity. There are several other victims that have been posting anonymously on VIN. Weingarten's team is trying to spin this as lies perpetrated by his ex-wife. Maybe they should hire Team Rubashkin to help in the spin campaign. Lubinsky can come out with a press release stating that Weingarten is consolidating his sex partners by divorcing his wife. Juda Englemayer should be hired to sockpuppet on the blogs, this time receiving tips from Getzel Rubashkin. Avi Shafran can write about "The Missing Ethic"- innocent until proven guilty, while Lubinsky can arrange a three hour tour of Weingarten's bedroom in Antwerp, all expenses paid of course, for the twenty five whiskered cows. Of course this will be followed up by more editorials by Pinny Lipschitz and Pesach Lerner, comparing the FBI with Amalek and yelling about a conspiracy theory. Nat Lewin can be hired to advise the legal team and to point out any historical inaccuracies regarding rabbis that lived over two hundred years ago. Team Rubashkin has the formula down pat and they should be willing to share their ingenuity and originality with other parties that have the need to cover up, distort, lie, corrupt and deceive the gullible Orthodox community.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.guardian.co.uk/business/feedarticle/7845350
ReplyDeleteNEW YORK, Oct 6 (Reuters) - Richard Fuld's attempt to reassure investors in Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc just days before it filed the largest-ever U.S. bankruptcy is attracting scrutiny from lawmakers and others examining the company's collapse.
A U.S. House of Representatives panel grilled Fuld, Lehman's chairman and chief executive, on Monday over whether comments he made during a conference call with Wall Street analysts in the investment bank's waning days were deceptive. Fuld testified there was no attempt to mislead anyone.
Legal experts said that under securities laws, criminal cases can be brought if prosecutors have evidence that corporate executives knowingly misled investors in an attempt to defraud them into buying or selling securities. The Securities and Exchange Commission can also bring civil charges.
The FBI is investigating Lehman, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, American International Group Inc and other companies hard hit by the mortgage and credit crisis, law enforcement officials have told Reuters.
No charges have been brought against any executive at these firms in connection with the probes.
The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York is investigating whether Lehman executives misled investors by making upbeat public comments in the Sept. 10 conference call five days before the firm filed for bankruptcy protection, the Wall Street Journal reported Monday, citing people familiar with the investigation.
Robert Nardoza, a spokesman for the U.S, Attorney in Brooklyn, New York, declined to comment on the report. A Lehman spokesman, Nathaniel Garnick, also had no comment.
Sir Vivor,
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't be surprised if Weingarten, Reichman, Kolko and Kagan all knew each other. They probably compared notes. It's amazing that we keep adding names to the list and we haven't even begun to scratch the surface of rabbinical sexual molesters in the community. In two weeks Dov Hikind accumulated HUNDREDS of new names and cases. Is this a plague or is this, in the words of the Agudah spokesman "the flimsiest of anectodal evidence"? Does this mean we need legislation NOW to protect our children, or are we, in the words of the Agudah Executive VP, "much better off when government leaves us alone"? I think we're much better off when the AGUDAH leaves us alone and allows us to deal with this plague according to halacha and according to secular law. This means no more thwarting Albany legislation, no more careless and dangerous articles and statements by the likes of Shafran, Zweibel, Mandel and Schick, and no more perversion of the halachos of messira, lashon hara and pidyon shvuyim. Just get out of the way. We have enough legitimate rabbis to consult with along with a team of psychologists, lawyers, politicians and concerned citizens. The message must be sent clearly to 42 Broadway- we don't need your help and we don't need your obstructive tactics. Lo Miduvshech Velo Meuksatech- not from your honey and not from your sting. As UOJ says, "the gig is up".
UOJ and readers,
ReplyDeleteAs a survivor of rabbinic abuse, I have to say it is so healing to see that the sickening, disgusting, insulting drivel vomitted up by Zweibel, Shafran and Schick does not go unnoticed by those with their heads not in the sand.
UOJ, you question what the gangsters have done with the cases that were "handled properly". If they had been handled properly there would be more perpetrators on sex offender registries and in jail.
The clear implication of this horrifying article is that if there was only a "few isolated cases" of child rape then the Agudah is not concerned. How many cases of frum on frum child rape does it take for them to pay attention long enough to stop whining about gay marriages and music concerts and abortion rights and bugs in the water? Some say that it would be different if one of their own kids was molested. Unfortunately, this has proven to be false. Even if Zweibel, Shafran or Schick had their own child molested, chas v'shalom, they would not change their sick twisted attitudes. They simply care more about their holy Agudah and what is in its best interest then they care about other less important things including their own children. I honestly do not believe that they don't care about others' children as much as their own. It seems clear that they put their "prestigous" positions at the ultimate "prestigous" organization in front of ANYTHING or ANYBODY else, no???
But more importantly, I think a damning question is what about the "one case that slipped through their fingers" as Reb Matisyahu Salomon called Kolko (who he would not chas v'shalom name for fear that somwhere a Jewish mother MIGHT hear and know to protect her children from being molested by him, G-d forbid)? What have they done since this one "little slip?" Have they reached out to any of the victims? Have they asked for and supported other victims to come forward? Have they made sure that Kolko is not funded to keep quiet? Have they done anything about the fact that Kolko is running around Lakewood, davening in shuls, most likely freely looking for another position in a school so he can ply his trade? Have they confronted Rabbi Margolis other than by offering him to start a branch of his child-abuse factory in Lakewood? Have they commented publicly on the culpability of a Yeshivah covering up molestation for 40 years or on the shameless and cruel intimidation of victims and their families?
For that matter, have these hypocritical "infallible" holy men had ANYTHING at all to say about Benzion Twersky being forced to resing by frum hooligans? What? Not one word of support fot this yid who tried to help the kinder until he was threatened?
Before we ask them to solve the problems that have not been publicly exposed, why don't we simply ask them to take care of the ones we all know about. How are they keeping children in Lakewood safe from Kolko?
I do feel a little sorry for the 3 stooges (Shafran, Zweibel and Schick) who have the uneviable task of trying to defend "gedolim" who are cynical, scared, phoney cowards, who worry more about the image of THE AGUDAH, then about their own children and therefore, have STILL not found the time to comment on the issue of Child sexual abuse.
To paraphrase Gold Meir talking about the Arabs, "We will have a solution when the Gedolim will love their children more than they hate UOJ."
Gmar Chasimah Tovah to all.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2008/10/06/2008-10-06_upstate_new_york_rabbi_held_on_molest_ch.html
ReplyDeleteAn upstate rabbi barricaded himself inside his home early yesterday after FBI agents came to arrest him for allegedly sexually abusing his daughter.
The feds had to break down two doors to collar Israel Weingarten, 58, who was hiding in his bedroom, a prosecutor said in Brooklyn Federal Court.
Weingarten has six other children, ages 13 to 24, who are living with him in his home in the Satmar community of Kiryas Joel in Monroe, Orange County. The prosecutor said the kids have been "brainwashed" to believe what he wants them to believe about the abuse of their sister.
Defense attorney Kenneth Gribtez said the allegations are "stale," dating back 11 years, and stem from a bitter divorce between Weingarten and his wife.
Alfred Weingarten, the defendant's brother, called the victim a "flip-flopper" who has previously retracted her claims. "She [the victim] is a problem, she left her religion 100%," Alfred Weingarten said.
http://www.silive.com/newsflash/index.ssf?/base/politics-16/122337445463120.xml&storylist=washington
ReplyDeleteWASHINGTON (AP) — A small group of Chinese muslims being held by the U.S. at Guantanamo Bay want a federal judge to order their release into the United States.
The detainees, known as Uighurs (WEE'-gurz), have been in custody for almost seven years.
The Bush administration no longer considers them enemy combatants and says they cannot be sent back to China where they are considered terrorists. Supporters say the Uighurs might be tortured if turned over to Beijing.
U.S. District Judge Ricardo M. Urbina has scheduled a hearing Tuesday to consider releasing them to live with a group of Uighurs living in northern Virginia.
http://lohud.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081007/NEWS03/810070400/-1/SPORTS
ReplyDeleteWeingarten's lawyer, Kenneth Gribetz of New City, said yesterday that the sexual abuse charges resulted from his client's bitter religious divorce about three years ago. He said the most recent sexual abuse allegations were about a decade old.
Gribetz said Rockland Family Court Judge Margaret Garvey and Rockland Child Protective Services cleared Weingarten. Gribetz said Weingarten was given custody of six of the couple's eight children. Those six children range in age from 13 to 24.
"The charges are from a lengthy, bitter divorce that has taken place over the years from Israel to Belgium to the United States," Gribetz said. "Six of his children living with him support him."
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Andrea Goldbarg and Rachel Nash argued in court papers that Weingarten represented a flight risk and was capable of intimidating witnesses.
Goldbarg told the judge that the Family Court case did not involve the victim of the charges in the indictment. Court papers accused Weingarten of hiding the children and using deceit in a Family Court custody battle.
Weingarten also has been accused of using force and deceit to prevent inquiries about his children's health, including an incident that occurred while the family lived in Kiryas Joel in Orange County.
Goldbarg said Weingarten was a "very manipulative, controlling personality" who had brainwashed his children into supporting him.
"He has demonstrated a willingness to interfere with investigations and intimidate witnesses," Goldbarg said.
The prosecution's court papers accused Weingarten of trying to kidnap the victim in England and assaulting a rabbi and his wife, who were protecting her.
Gribetz asked the judge to free Weingarten without bail or on a personal security bond, arguing his client "had no reason to flee."
Azrack said she was disturbed not only by the nature of the allegations but by Weingarten's behavior when the FBI came to his home. She said she believed he may be a danger to his own relatives.
"I'm not inclined to release him under any circumstances," the judge said. "I question how rational he is and whether he is willing to obey orders of the court."
Weingarten and six of his children refused to answer the door when FBI agents arrived to arrest him. The agents had to force their way into the house and then break down the door to a bedroom after Weingarten locked himself inside.
Gribetz suggested the brief standoff was a misunderstanding and caused partially by his client's fears and a language barrier.
Weingarten feared the men at the door were supporters of his ex-wife who had come to hurt him, Gribetz said, adding Weingarten claims he has been attacked before.
"He was even calling 911 for police to come help him," Gribetz said.
As Weingarten stood before the judge, a dozen men in Hasidic garb sat in the gallery, including Weingarten's brother and several men who said they were the rabbi's students.
Rabbi Jacob Moskowitz of Monsey said Weingarten was a "very nice person" who was well regarded as a Judaic scholar in Antwerp, Belgium, where he taught for years.
"He sits at home and doesn't hurt a fly," Moskowitz said, adding the allegations were the product of a "dirty matrimonial case."
He said Weingarten's students were so devoted to him that some had taken out mortgages to help him financially over the years as he faced allegations.
"He has a lot of supporters. People have a lot of sympathy for him," Moskowitz said.
Gribetz said Weingarten doesn't have any money or property to put up for any bail, even if the judge sets bond. He said his client was "in agony" about having to spend Yom Kippur in jail.
http://lohud.com/article/20081007/NEWS02/810070381
ReplyDeleteMultimillionaire real estate businessman Eric Hadar was freed on $50,000 bail yesterday after spending four days in jail on charges that police found cocaine, Xanax and Oxycontin in his car when he was pulled over on a county parkway.
Looking disheveled after his weekend in the county jail, Hadar, 43, wearing tan pants and a blue short-sleeved polo shirt, was whisked away from the Yonkers courthouse in a limousine after being released by Yonkers Judge Arthur Doran III.
Hadar, a resident of 153 Wood Road in Bedford, is the chief executive officer of the real estate firm Allied Partners. He is facing charges of second-degree criminal possession of a control substance and third-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance, both felonies.
Because of the high level of the charges, a Yonkers City Court judge could not set bail for Hadar. So attorney Ronald P. Fischetti of Manhattan, who led a team of four lawyers representing Hadar, went to the County Courthouse in White Plains yesterday morning where Judge Gerald Loehr set the $50,000 bail. They then returned to Yonkers City Court where bail bondsman Martin Rochelle posted the bond.
Hadar was unhandcuffed in court and left with his team of lawyers.
"We know nothing about the charges," Fischetti said outside the courthouse after his client hopped into the limousine without commenting. "The most important thing was to get him out on bail."
Hadar is a member of numerous boards and commissions, including the Real Estate Board of New York.
http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070115/NEWS/70115553/-1/NEWS271995
ReplyDeleteTimes Herald-Record
January 15, 2007
Wednesday, April 19, 1995 - Do you have anything to say before I sentence the defendant? the judge asked Rockland prosecutor Ken Gribetz.
It should have been lights, action, camera for the barking media hound. Gribetz had singlehandedly brought down former state Sen. Linda Winikow, who bullied and stole her way across Rockland and Orange counties. Here comes hammer time.
Gribetz rose shakily, pale as a cadaver. He mumbled, no, your honor, whatever you say, your honor, thank you, your honor. He sat down in a heap of worried bones.
Yes, when the hoodlum Winikow was sentenced to jail the other week, she wasn't even the most despondent person in the courtroom. It was Ken Gribetz, who afterward hid away in a side staircase.
A political crony whispered to him, ``Are you coming to the Gilman fund-raiser Sunday? Come on, Kenny, it'll get your mind off things.''
``No,'' said Gribetz, his voice tight. ``Can't.''
A reporter challenged him about his no-show on the Winikow sentencing. He answered blankly. Then he walked away, a ghost in a necktie.
Ken Gribetz knew what was coming. Nearly everyone heard the whispers and we had passed them around. On Monday, the public hammer slammed with the front page of the Daily News.
There was a picture of a woman kissing Gribetz alongside a giant headline that said ``I Had Affair With D.A.'' He was a dead man right there, career and family hung.
You can argue that Gribetz, who could have one day been our congressman, is a vain, arrogant showboat who got his. You can say he was done in by vengeful rivals Gribetz once investigated.
The truth is, Kenneth Gribetz was smashed to dust by the anvil that has become our shameful obsession - the witnessing of personal disgrace.
http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081007/NEWS/810070318
ReplyDeleteNotorious sex offender dies after losing control of car
http://interested-participant.blogspot.com/2008/05/new-york-teachers-aide-gets-jail-new.html
ReplyDelete(New Windsor, New York) In June 2007, a teacher's aide, Maria E. Zurita, and a teacher, Rebecca L. Becker, at McQuade Children's Services in New Windsor were charged with sex crimes after an alleged Memorial Day weekend of sexual encounters with two 16-year-old male students. An investigation was launched when the two boys failed to return to the school after the weekend.
Both Becker and Zunita were booked on counts of rape and child endangerment. Becker pleaded guilty in September 2007. She will be sentenced on May 21.
This week, after being convicted by a jury, 29-year-old Maria Zurita was sentenced by Judge Nicholas DeRosa to one year in the Orange County Jail. And, despite Zurita begging the judge for one more chance,
DeRosa sentenced Zurita to the maximum requested by prosecutors for her conviction on a misdemeanor charge of endangering the welfare of a child: A year in the Orange County Jail. That works out to eight months with time off for good behavior.
Zurita, 29, will have to surrender on Monday. Prosecutors consented to the delay because her lawyer, former Rockland County District Attorney Ken Gribetz, is likely to convince a state appellate judge to put the sentence on hold while Zurita appeals.
DeRosa imposed the sentence requested by Senior Assistant District Attorney Michael Milza, who said that Zurita "repeatedly, blatantly lied to the grand jury about the events of that weekend."
The rape charge against Zurita was dismissed because the victim, a troubled youth, failed to show up at trial.
http://interested-participant.blogspot.com/2008/05/teacher-rebecca-becker-gets-jail-new.html
Rebecca Becker was sentenced to three months in jail.
So, in the end one rolls on her accomplice and gets 90 days in jail for a felony while the other gets one year for a misdemeanor. Double heh.
http://yonkerstribune.typepad.com/yonkers_tribune/2008/06/westchester-cou.html
ReplyDelete"Tootsie" revisited!
The Dems are a "drag" anyway. So they might as well dress the part. Word is they prowl certain hot spots in Greenwich Village on weekends. Ken Jenkins was spotted wearing high heels and a mini skirt he borrowed from Ken Gribetz, the then- Rockland DA who got caught doing just that about 10 years ago.
Those "Kens" stick together, so to speak.
http://www.nydailynews.com/archives/news/1995/05/04/1995-05-04_private_shame_ends_public_ca.html
ReplyDeleteThursday, May 4th 1995, 2:34AM
When Ken Gribetz walked into court yesterday, he automatically headed for the prosecutor's table, as he did for more than 20 years as Rockland County district attorney.
But a bailiff stopped him, pointing to the other side.
Gribetz would have to stand beside the defense attorney.
The Gribetz who resigned in shame yesterday as Rockland's chief law enforcement officer seemed just a nervous shadow of the handsome, energetic crime buster who courted headlines and dreamed of a national profile.
Gribetz' highly successful career which ranged from prosecuting the gay-sex murder of a male model to the Brink's robbery of 1981 had sputtered during a federal investigation of tax evasion.
It crashed completely yesterday when he pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges of using county money for personal matters.
It was a fatal blow to the image of the 50-year-old Gribetz as a strait-laced Orthodox Jew and married father to three daughters.
Two weeks ago, his former mistress, Constance Taylor, smashed the facade by revealing the kinky details of their three-year affair in a front-page Daily New s story.
There were sex toys, she said, and a contract in which he swore to be her sex slave.
On Taylor's answering machine tapes, Gribetz referred to himself as a "bad girl."
Federal search warrants detail the evidence investigators took from Taylor's home, including what she called "Kenny's cross-dressing wardrobe" a gold lame miniskirt, black high heels, pantyhose and a brunette wig.
Gribetz didn't deny the affair. Instead, he said it was over and insisted no taxpayer money was used to finance it.
But his close friend and former law partner, Herschel Greenbaum, was telling the feds about the $6,000 secret cash payment he steered to Gribetz.
County Executive Scott Vanderhoef formed a committee to look for Gribetz' replacement. The cross-party backing that Gribetz a Democrat from a politically connected family had enjoyed for years evaporated.
Not all the community work, not all the donations to local and religious charities could help him.
Not even the reputation garnered from his well-received autobiography, "Murder Along the Way."
Gribetz made no mention of Taylor in his book. Nor did he discuss the fiscal shenanigans that led to his downfall.
In January, his former lover began posting flyers on telephone poles all over Rockland County with caricatures of Gribetz in drag, brandishing a whip, that said: "Who is Kenneth Gribetz, D.A.?"
http://theawarenesscenter.org/adler-rimland.html
ReplyDeleteBut criminal charges of child sex abuse were never filed against Ari Adler because Rockland County District Attorney Kenneth Gribetz "said" there was insufficient evidence. (Gribetz later resigned unceremoniously from office on the heels of a major FBI investigation alleging corruption).
two friends of Gribetz, businessman Murray Appelbaum and private investigator Murray Bauer have been charged with perjury for allegedly lying to the grand jury.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nydailynews.com/archives/news/1995/04/14/1995-04-14_da_to_pay_piper_______feds_e.html
Friday, April 14th 1995, 2:35AM
The Manhattan U.S. attorney is nearing a decision on whether to seek an indictment against Rockland County District Attorney Kenneth Gribetz on criminal tax evasion charges, according to a law enforcement source familiar with the investigation.
The case stems from evidence gathered by prosecutors that several local lawyers paid Gribetz secret cash fees for referring negligence cases to them, according to court papers and sources. The question is whether Gribetz reported that income.
Federal prosecutors may have to decide whether to indict Gribetz in a case involving one of those payments because the statute of limitations on criminal tax evasion runs out tomorrow.
Gribetz would have had to report the payment on his tax form filed April 15, 1989 six years ago tomorrow.
Gribetz has the right to waive the statute requirement. Gribetz this week declined to answer questions about the investigation. His lawyer, Gus Newman, also refused to comment.
Manhattan U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White also had no comment on the matter, which has been before a grand jury in White Plains since June 1993.
Gribetz is best known for prosecuting suspected serial killer Reginald McFadden, and for gaining convictions against carjack murderer Edward Summers and against several radicals in the 1981 Nyack Brinks robbery.
The grand jury is also investigating at least one other secret payment on which the statute of limitations has longer to run, according to court papers and sources.
The sources say that the grand jury has zeroed in on whether Gribetz "committed income tax evasion by receiving cash kickbacks from private attorneys in exchange for referring legal matters to those attorneys."
Some lawyers are cooperating with authorities, according to sources. And court papers show that two friends of Gribetz businessman Murray Appelbaum and private investigator Murray Bauer have been charged with perjury for allegedly lying to the grand jury.
It's not known how much money the lawyers allegedly paid Gribetz. But interviews with sources familiar with the probe and a review of court records shows the feds have evidence that a now-defunct firm, Ferraro & Rogers of Pearl River, N.Y., directed a $6,000 payment to Gribetz for referring to them a personal injury case that netted the firm about $46,000.
Last year, the grand jury received evidence that the law firm's records showed Gribetz made the referral, and that one of the firm's attorneys told his peers payments were made to Gribetz for referring the case. This allegation is outlined in court papers and was confirmed last week by a Ferraro & Rogers attorney, Herschel Greenbaum.
The case involved Vincent Ricciardi, who was hurt in a 1985 car accident. Ricciardi sued and won a $140,000 insurance settlement on March 27, 1988. The alleged payment to Gribetz occurred the next month.
In an interview last week, Ricciardi confirmed that Appelbaum, a Rockland County businessman, referred him to the law firm. He says he didn't meet Gribetz until 1988.
Appelbaum was indicted last month and charged with lying to the grand jury about the alleged payment scheme. He pleaded not guilty, and his attorney, Gerald Lefcourt, says he will aggressively fight the charge.
Court papers indicate the firm issued $1,000 checks to six of the firm's lawyers, then told them to cash the checks for payment to Gribetz.
It's not known whether Gribetz received the cash. If he did, the feds want to know whether he reported it to the tax man.
Ben Stein How Not to Ruin Your Life
ReplyDeleteHow to Ruin the U.S. Economy
by Ben Stein
Posted on Monday, October 6, 2008
1) Have a fiscal policy that creates immense deficits in good times and bad, burdening America's posterity with staggering burdens of repaying the debt.
2) Eliminate regulation of Wall Street and/or fail to enforce the regulations that already exist, instead trusting Wall Street and other money managers and speculators to manage other people's money with few or no regulations and little oversight.
3) Have an energy policy that disallows producing our own energy and instead requires that we buy energy from abroad, thus making our oil prices highly volatile and creating large balance of payments deficits, lowering the value of the dollar and thus making the problem get progressively worse.
4) Have Congress mandate that banks and other financial entities lend money to persons they know in advance to have poor credit ratings or none at all.
5) Allow investment banks, insurers, and banks to bet their entire net worth and then some on the premise that borrowers known to be improvident will in fact repay those loans.
6) Allow the creation of large betting pools called "hedge funds" that can move markets and control the outcome of trading, thus taking a forum for savings and retirement for families and making it into a rigged casino game that exists primarily to fleece suckers like ordinary working men and women.
7) Have laws that protect corporate officers from being sued for misconduct but at the same time punish lawyers in the private sector who ferret out such misconduct and try to make accountable the people responsible for shareholder and investor losses. If one of those lawyers gets particularly aggressive in protecting stockholders, put him in prison.
8) Appoint as head of the United States Treasury Department a man whose whole life was spent on Wall Street, who became fantastically rich through his peddling of junk bonds at his firm while the firm later sold short those same sorts of bonds.
9) Scare Americans into putting up $750 billion of their hard earned money to bail out the billionaires and their friends who created the market for loans to poor credit risks (The "subprime" market) and the unbelievably large side bets on those loans, promising that such a bailout would save the retirement savings of Americans, then allow the immense hedge funds to make the market crater immediately afterwards.
10) Propose to save the situation by surtaxing the oil industry, which is owned by our fellow Americans, mostly in their retirement plans, thus penalizing Americans for investing in companies that efficiently and legally produce an indispensable product.
11) Insist that the free market requires that banks and insurers with friends of the Secretary of the Treasury be saved but allow other entities not so fortunate to fail, thus creating total uncertainty and terror among financial institutions, and demolishing all of the confidence built up in financial circles since the days of FDR.
12) Then have the Republican candidate say he would keep on the job the Treasury Secretary who facilitated the crisis, failed to protect the nation from the crisis, got the taxpayers to pony up to save his Wall Street buddies, and have the Democratic candidate, as noted, say he would save the day by taxing the stockholders of energy companies.
There, that should do it.
I daven in Beth Sholom in Lawrence by Rabbi Kenny Hain
ReplyDeletehttp://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=990CE2D81638F931A25756C0A963958260
To the Editor:
Re "Mr. Gribetz's Misdemeanors" (editorial, May 6):
The sentencing judge will and should mete out punishment consistent with the particular crime(s) of which Kenneth Gribetz, former Rockland County district attorney, has pleaded guilty -- all in accordance with Federal Sentencing Guidelines. The misdemeanor is a relatively minor crime for which generally, where there is no prior criminal record, as here, prison time is rare.
Therefore, if such be the sentence pronounced on Mr. Gribetz, it will not be unusual or preferential. On the contrary, the prison time you advocate would be vengeful rather than judicious.
Furthermore, if external facts should be evaluated, the 20-plus years of Mr. Gribetz's exemplary public service should be a consideration.
When the guilty plea of baseball's Darryl Strawberry for failing to report $500,000 in income does not result in jail time, and the mob informer Sammy Gravano, after admitting to participating in 19 murders, serves less than five years, justice should weigh on the side of leniency for Mr. Gribetz.
DANIEL N. ZASLOWSKY New York, May 8, 1995
The writer is a lawyer.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=990CEFDC1F31F937A35756C0A963958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all
ReplyDeleteGribetz admitted in court to building his sukkah with stolen money.
He must have a "heter" from the OU. The OU's Rabbi Dr. Seth Mandel was attacked on Rabbi Shain's blog yesterday for saying that Rubashkin shechita is not invalidated by even the most egregious types of mitzva haba baaveira which goes against everything in the Chazal.
http://www.jewishsf.com/content/2-0-/module/displaystory/story_id/20989/edition_id/432/format/html/displaystory.html
ReplyDeleteNEW YORK -- Is it right to expect more moral behavior from those who present themselves as religious Jews than from those who do not?
The answer depends on which rabbi you ask.
The spokesman for an ultra-reglious group, Agudath Israel of America, said he was not so certain that the focus on religious Jews' failings is legitimate.
In another high-profile New York case, Rockland County District Attorney Kenneth Gribetz, an Orthodox Jew, quit his post last month shortly before pleading guilty to two misdemeanor counts of defrauding the government in a deal he worked out with the U.S. Attorney.
Although married, a father and grandfather, Gribetz was partly done in by his former mistress, who went to the media with information about him. Gribetz aspired to being a congressman and was admired by many of his area's religious Jews.
Rabbi Moshe Tendler, Gribetz's longtime rabbi, said in an interview that he had often cited Gribetz in his speeches to illustrate how a devout Jew can remain faithful to the laws of kashrut and Shabbat while pursuing any career --even in law and politics.
But evidence police collected from Gribetz's ex-lover's home included whips, a dog collar, sex toys and pictures of Gribetz modeling women's clothing. Their three-year affair apparently included trips they took together funded by taxpayers' dollars.
Tendler, who organized a meeting of community rabbis to levy social sanctions against Gribetz just before his breaches became public, described the former politician's behavior as a "chilul haShem," or a desecration of God's name.
His behavior "emasculated our Torah. It reduces or minimizes the claim of Torah, that this is the divine law fit for the human experience. If someone who has been exposed to Torah does these things, what will people say?" said Tendler.
It is the reverse of what a religious Jew is supposed to do, that "the name of God shall be loved by your actions in Kiddush HaShem," said the rabbi,who is also a professor at Yeshiva University and a respected expert on medical ethics.
http://backissues.cjrarchives.org/year/95/5/d_l.asp
ReplyDeleteLAUREL to Community Media, Inc., a four-paper chain of weeklies in Rockland County, New York, for making the First Amendment its weapon of choice. When Community Media decided to support the challenger to the powerfully entrenched county executive in the 1993 election, Community and its candidate were threatened by district attorney Kenneth Gribetz with possible indictment -- the candidate, for charges never specified; the papers, for allegedly accepting payment not to report certain facts damaging to its candidate. Fighting back in a civil-rights lawsuit, Community won: "You have no right to chill the editorial judgment of this newspaper," the federal judge told Gribetz. Soon after, Community began investigating Gribetz's activities, relentlessly reporting over the next two years on its findings. A federal investigation of Gribetz and his cronies followed
http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/110496.ZOR.html
ReplyDeleteD-1715 IN THE MATTER OF DISBARMENT OF KENNETH GRIBETZ
Kenneth Gribetz, of Monsey, New York, having been suspended from the practice of law in this Court by order of August 21, 1996; and a rule having been issued and served upon him requiring him to show cause why he should not be disbarred; and the time to file a response having expired; It is ordered that Kenneth Gribetz is disbarred from the practice of law in this Court.
http://www.nypress.com/21/11/news&columns/feature.cfm
ReplyDeleteJust last week, Harlem Assembly Member Adam Clayton Powell IV, heir to one of the most-revered names in local politics, was pulled over on the West Side Highway for drunk driving. He says he co-operated. Other reports said he tried to wiggle his way out of a breathalyzer. No one seems to deny he had a passed-out woman in the backseat.
Powell was twice in the last few years accused of rape, with alcohol involved in the incidents. The charges were ultimately dropped, but if Powell was able to keep more of a distance between women, alcohol and himself, they might never have been brought. (Powell declared his innocence on the latest charge. He has made no mention of a change of plans to run for re-election to the Assembly in the fall or public advocate of the city next year.)
But there are others.
Dutchess County Assembly Member Pat Manning lost his 2006 re-election primary after news surfaced that he had tried to impersonate his rival’s political consultant on a phone call as he tried to get information on a private poll. That, plus the revelation of Manning’s extra-marital affair, helped end the political career of the man who had months before billed himself as the conservative, family candidate for governor.
Then there was Kenneth Gribetz, a Rockland County district attorney whose ex-mistress outed him in 1995 with claims that county workers chauffeured them to their trysts at hotel rooms Gribetz paid for with county credit cards. Or Allan Jennings, the Queens Council member who was censured after five women complained he committed various forms of sexual harassment—including Frank Costanza’s famous “stop short” move and brushing up against a woman at full staff.
Or the more innocent upstate Assembly Member Mike Cole. He was never accused of having sex—just getting drunk and falling asleep on the floor of an intern’s apartment last year, just months after being elected. He was censured by the Assembly, but remains in office. He is up for re-election this year.
And the list goes on and on and on through all sorts of sexual acts and strange liaisons. Spitzer, though, is the only one who seems to have been willing to pay for what he got, which could explain why he was so intent on getting a bargain. His possible five-year jail term and life of shattered possibilities now ahead should provide enough time to think about whether, in the end, he got a good deal.
4 locations
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nationalgranite.com/
NATIONAL GRANITE TITLE INSURANCE AGENCY, INC
Kenneth Gribetz, President
Lynn Deutsch, VP
Joseph Deutsch, Title Cnsl.
Could it be because Rockland County DA Tom Zugibe was executive assistant to then-District Attorney Kenneth Gribetz?
ReplyDeleteFebruary 1, 2008
ReplyDeleteA former state assemblyman who resigned his seat in 2006 in the wake of a gay-sex scandal has been charged with drunken driving.
Ryan Karben, 33, a Rockland County Democrat who more recently has been a political consultant for local candidates and a fund-raiser for Gov. Spitzer, was arrested by Ramapo town police after crashing his car into a utility pole.
Police said they found Karben's car a quarter-mile to a half-mile from the accident scene in front of a cemetery.
Karben was alone at the time of the Wednesday-night crash, and hit the pole after swerving to avoid a deer, his lawyer said.
But, according to the police arrest report, Karben smelled of alcohol and had glassy eyes and impaired speech.
He was arrested after failing several field sobriety tests and taken to police headquarters, where he refused to take a chemical test to measure his blood-alcohol level, authorities said.
Karben, who has a private law practice and is deputy village attorney in Spring Valley, was arraigned yesterday and released without bail.
"He'll be entering a plea of not guilty," said his lawyer, Kenneth Gribetz, a former DA who resigned in disgrace in 1995 for using public resources for his own benefit.
Karben was considered an up-and-coming young Democrat when he was forced to resign or face sanctions in the Assembly following complaints about his conduct by male interns.
The Post reported that Karben, an Orthodox Jew and married father of three, was said to have made improper approaches to young male interns, including getting at least one to watch gay porn with him.
kenneth.lovett@nypost.com
http://www.co.rockland.ny.us/guidance/staff.htm
ReplyDeleteWhy do you think his wife Judy Gribetz still has a job with Rockland County government? I owe Ken big time.
Oy vey, Ryan Karben was a mispalel by me when I had a shul.
ReplyDeleteI protest UOJ attacking the choshuve Ken Gribetz who davens in the shul I founded.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.baistorah.org/index.php?section=contact&cat_id=5
Cong. Bais Torah
89 West Carlton Rd. Suffern, NY 10901
Attorney General Mukasey knew Gribetz's late brother Allen, a pulmonologist from Mt. Sinai, from Lookstein's shul on the Upper East Side. Another Gribetz brother, Michael from Englewood NJ is a urologist at Mt. Sinai.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.vosizneias.com/21165/2008/10/07/monsey-ny-could-this-possibly-be-true-yes-time-to-get-frightened/
ReplyDeleteMonsey, NY - Since the news broke about the arrest of a heimishe man, for repeatedly doing unspeakable things to a girl/young woman over many years, people have been asking me the same question again and again, “Could this possibly be true?”
To all worried parents and community members who are asking this question; my unequivocal answer is, “YES.” Period. Exclamation point.
I do not know any specifics of this particular ghoulish tale other than what I read in the hair-raising copy of the federal indictment but I have heard far more than one or two stories like this one from credible, heimishe people in the past. (For the record; I always ask the victims to go straight to the police and report the abusers.) So even if this story is not true – and it is beyond naïve to think that federal agents would convene a grand jury and make an arrest like this one, merely on the say-so of a vindictive family member, without substantive forensic proof – the terribly sad fact is that it most certainly could be true.
http://m.lohud.com/detail.jsp?key=95582&full=1
ReplyDeleteJune 21, 2008 12:00 PM
Forgery and attempted grand larceny charges were brought against a Ramapo couple yesterday, accusing them of trying to steal a house belonging to a retired school bus driver.
Michael and Chaya Goldstein of 1 Stephens Place were released without bail pending a hearing of the charges Monday by County Court Judge Victor Alfieri.
The indictment, unsealed yesterday before County Court Judge Charles Apotheker, came just two weeks before the five-year statute of limitations could have barred the prosecution.
If convicted of the charges - second-degree attempted grand larceny, forgery and criminal possession of a forged instrument -the Goldsteins could face prison terms ranging between 1 to 3 years, and 2 1/2 to 7 years.
The indictment in part accuses the Goldsteins of falsely making and altering a contract.
Michael Goldstein was led, hands cuffed behind his back, into the New City courtroom at 11:59 a.m. by detectives from the District Attorney's Office.
He and his noticeably pregnant wife were ordered by Apotheker to relinquish their passports and not leave the state.
They also were ordered to have no contact with Venera Held, who had waged a five-year court battle against the Goldsteins to keep the 60 Decatur Ave. house.
Her hopes were repeatedly dashed by state Supreme Court Justice Alfred Weiner's rulings.
Weiner decided after a nonjury trial that Michael Goldstein's account of Held's signing a contract in a Monsey bagel shop was more believable than Held's insistence that she'd been duped.
The charges could grow against Michael Goldstein as the District Attorney's Office continues to investigate his real estate dealings.
"We have a mortgage and real estate fraud unit," Executive Assistant District Attorney Gary Lee Heavner said after the court session, "and there is an ongoing investigation of these facts (the indictment) as well as similar cases."
Daniel Bertolino, an Upper Nyack attorney who defended Held against Goldstein's attempts to evict tenants including one of Held's daughters from the house, said he had other clients who had real estate dealings with Goldstein.
"I absolutely intend to cooperate fully with the District Attorney's Office on four other matters," Bertolino said.
During yesterday's court session, defense attorney Kenneth Gribetz, a former Rockland district attorney, said the indictment was absurd.
"This has been litigated for years and years before Judge Weiner," Gribetz said of the civil case that began after the July 4, 2003, bagel shop meeting.
"He rendered his decision 100 percent in favor of the Goldsteins," Gribetz said, "and the Appellate Division has upheld his decision."
Gribetz called the indictment "a slap in the face" to Weiner and the appeals court.
That state appeals court has supported Weiner because it thought he was in a better position to weigh the credibility of witnesses than judges who were not in the courtroom.
Heavner said the prosecution was not interested in the civil case.
"The people are only concerned over what a duly sworn grand jury did," Heavner said.
He said the grand jury's decision to indict showed there was reasonable evidence of a crime, and that the Goldsteins were responsible.
Gribetz further argued that the indictment was suspect because Held had been represented by a former member of a law firm in which District Attorney Thomas Zugibe had been a partner.
Jennifer Parietti, now an assistant prosecutor, had briefly represented Held in eviction proceedings brought by Goldstein in Ramapo Town Court.
Heavner yesterday said neither Zugibe nor any members of his former firm were involved in the indictment.
"They are not part of any fact finding, or decision making," Heavner said of the Goldstein case.
Held, 75, has been battling the Goldsteins since soon after the meeting in Sammy's Bagels.
She said she signed a scrap of paper and accepted $5,000 that she thought would give Goldstein first rights to the house if she ever decided to sell.
But she said she did not sell the house, and was surprised when Chaya Goldstein later gave her a lengthy contract that supposedly bore her signature.
The original sale price of the house was purported to be $265,000, but the value has since dropped to about $183,000 because of penalties imposed by Weiner.
Goldstein is in the process of subdividing the property for multifamily housing. That plan is under review by Ramapo's zoning board.
Estimate for 2006. Does Rubashkin really have output of over a million chickens a month? That would mean about 50,000 chickens a day.
ReplyDeleteIt also seems here that Gourarie was not kicked out of Agri but demoted to a lower position, at least according to what Agri tells the State.
http://www.prairieduchienarea.com/courier/ARCHIVES/oct%2010-12,%202005.htm
Agriprocessors of Postville, Iowa, one of the largest specialty meat packers in the nation, anticipates processing 15 million chickens next year. In the past, the company has purchased the birds they need from outside sources. Soon the company may be getting poultry from area farmers. Through its new Family Farms Poultry Program, Agriprocessors plans to recruit 25 to 30 area farmers in four counties - Clayton, Fayette, Allamakee and Winneshiek - to raise chickens for their plant.
"It just makes good sense for our company and our community to create a supply of locally grown chickens for our plant," said Yossi Gourarie, vice president of live poultry operations for Agriprocessors.
It's no big shock that the alleged child molester would hire scum like this to be his shyster. Up here in Canada, every neo-nazi charged with hate crimes for the last two decades has been defended by the same creep lawyer.
ReplyDelete'rabbi'[sic] Weingarten has been suspected for years of molesting his daughters. Concerned members of the community went to the Antwerp Rabbinate to complain about it 15 years ago. They, in their infinite wisdom, saw fit to give him a letter of innocence based on his own testimony. Some did try to fight him. He however fought back with threats and intimidation and like true troopers the soldiers of the Lord all backed down and left his children to their fate.
ReplyDeleteI also notice that the Rabbi/teacher in Manchester, who fought with the father to stop him kidnapping her, so he obviously knew what was going on, still did not go to the police.
A victim myself I am happy to finally see someone actually indicted and hope this will open the floodgates to the scores more cases I know about. Open the eyes of the idiots who believe that the community's image and His name is enhanced by sliding the pain of innocent victims under the carpet. And open the debate about whether a person's risk of libel and loshon hora can ever be greater than our responsibility towards our own helpless children.
mottiboy@hotmail.com
ALERT:
ReplyDeleteWASHINGTON (AP) Drug companies say kids under 4 should not be given cough and cold medicines.
ALERT, Chassidich (re acidic) and yeshivish rabbis in israel just banned all simchas bais hashoeve taking place outdoors. Even ger, who has dr. mondrowitz to deal with found time to sign this one.
ReplyDeleteAlbany, NY - Another child has accused a local rabbi of sexual abuse, city police said today.
ReplyDeletePolice spokesman Det. James Miller said the 13-year-old boy was identified as another alleged victim of Rabbi Yaakov Weiss, 28, of Loudonville, during the initial investigation of a referral from the New York State Child Protection Agency.
Weiss, rabbi at Chabad of Colonie and founder of the Chabad Hebrew School, was charged Sept. 29 with several counts of sexual abuse and endangering the welfare of a child for alleged incidents involving another 13-year-old boy as a result of the initial referral.
The latest allegations involve an alleged incident that occurred in June on Whitehall Road, Miller said. Weiss was charged with second-degree sexual abuse and endangering the welfare of a child this afternoon in response to that allegation and was arraigned in City Criminal Court.
http://www.cbs6albany.com/news/bus_1257690___article.html/driver_sentenced.html
ReplyDeleteFormer bus driver sentenced for sex abuse
http://www.wgy.com/cc-common/news/sections/newsarticle.html?feed=121957&article=4352456
ReplyDeleteTHE DETAILS ARE OUT OF A HIGHLY CRITICAL AUDIT OF ALBANY COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY DAVID SOARES OFFICE. COUNTY COMPTROLLER MIKE CONNERS'S OFFICE FOUND SIX EVIDENCE BAGS EITHER TAMPERED WITH OR MISSING FROM AN EVIDENCE SAFE, ALONG WITH ABOUT 62-HUNDRED DOLLARS IN CASH MISSING FROM THAT SAME SAFE. THAT'S ALONG WITH NUMEROUS PURCHASES MADE WITH FORFEITED MONEY. CONNERS SAYS THE AUDIT WAS NOT TIMED TO COINCIDE WITH SOARES' RE-ELECTION CAMPAIGN...IN FACT, HE SAYS THE REASON THE AUDIT TOOK PLACE IS BECAUSE OF ACTIONS IN THE D-A'S OFFICE...WHEN ASKED IF THE AUDIT HAS POLITICAL OVERTONES, SOARES WOULD ONLY SAY HE EXPECTS MORE AUDITS TO COME BETWEEN NOW AND ELECTION DAY....SOARES SAYS THE COMPTROLLER'S OFFICE HAS NOT CONTACTED HIS OFFICE SINCE HE WAS ELECTED, ONLY IN THE PAST FEW WEEKS. SOARES WILL HIRE A FORENSIC AUDITOR TO LOOK AT EVERYTHING IN THE D-A'S SAFE, TO GIVE A FINAL REVIEW OF WHAT IS AND IS NOT IN HIS OFFICE'S POSSESSION.
There's a yeshiva and frum hotel up there.
ReplyDeletehttp://capitalnews9.com/content/headlines/125516/man-accused-of-molesting-kids-indicted-on-456-counts/Default.aspx
It's on a Saratoga County horse farm where investigators said breeder Donald Nitchman was sexually abusing teen boys.
“One of the young boys came forward. He had been sodomized by Mr. Nitchman,” said Saratoga County District Attorney Jim Murphy.
Murphy said with the first boy telling state police, that led investigators to finding two others Nitchman is accused of abusing. Murphy said the incidents started in 2004 when the teens were 13. The indictment is for more than 400 abuse-related charges.
“It is really unprecedented number of counts in the indictment,” said Murphy. “Remember, this is over a four-year period and three separate victims.”
We went to the farm, but no one at the house would speak with us.
Neighbors who declined speaking with us on-camera tell us they were suspicious of what went on at the farm.
Nitchman is in Saratoga County Jail and could get life if convicted.
Murphy said each teen is in counseling and will be testifying when Nitchman goes to trial.
“It's shattering. And no matter what we do with the criminal case, they will never be the same,” Murphy said.
Murphy said Nitchman was originally arrested in June and they are just now indicting him after trying to avoid having the boys testify in front of a grand jury.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1027016.html
ReplyDeleteLebanese union to sue Israel for ‘claiming ownership’ of falafel
By DPA
A new war between Israel and Lebanon has erupted, but this time the war is not geopolitical, but rather an issue of cuisine-who has sovereignty over traditional Arab dishes and sandwiches.
The president of the Lebanese Industrialists Association Fadi Abboud, said he is preparing to file an international lawsuit against Israel for allegedly “taking the identity of some Lebanese foods” and thus violating a food copyright.
“In a way the Jewish state is trying to claim ownership of traditional Lebanese delicacies like falafel, tabouleh and hummus” Abboud said.
According to Abboud, the Lebanese are losing “tens of millions of dollars annually” because Israel is selling and marketing traditional Lebanese dishes.
“The Israelis are marketing our main food dishes as if they were Israeli dishes,” he charged.
“We are working on registering all the foods and ingredients which will be submitted to the Lebanese government so it can appeal to the international courts against Israel,” Abboud said.
“The Israelis are marketing such Lebanese delicacies under the same names and ingredients around the world,” he added. “This is harming and causing great losses to Lebanon.”
Abboud said he prepared his memo on the subject, based on the case of the Greek “feta cheese precedent” that occurred six years ago.
At the time, Greece managed to prove in international institutions that it was the “originator” of feta cheese and won the case.
According to Abboud, while Lebanon never registered the names and ingredients of its own delicacies, “it can refer to the Greece precedent since these foods are historically known as traditional Lebanese foods.
“By doing so, we are preventing Israel from stealing our main food trademarks and selling them around the world,” Abboud added.
It is time for the 'rabbis' to take responsibility for this mess which they have caused, their silence and running after bans on concerts instead of focusing on the real issues. May these bad things befall them and only then, maybe will they say something. Shame on them and shame on all of you who support them. It is time to ban the rabbis!
ReplyDeletehttp://online.wsj.com/article/SB122334231446610135.html
ReplyDeleteLETTERS
OCTOBER 7, 2008
Sephardic Jews Brought the Falafel
In his review of Chris Fair’s “Cuisines of the Axis of Evil,” (Oct. 3), Abheek Bhattacharya says “Ms. Fair does a good job explaining how Israel’s possession of Palestinian land has made falafel, hummus and baba ganouj staples in Tel Aviv.”
Actually, the prevalence of these foods in Israel has a different basis, which tells a quite different story. These were popularized by the Sephardim, the roughly one-half of Israel’s population that was accepted as refugees to the state after they were forcibly evicted, for no reason other than that they were Jews, without compensation, from their homes and communities in the Arab states of the Mideast in which they had lived for hundred of years. Tel Aviv, which is well within Israel’s internationally recognized borders, was built by Jews on land purchased and owned by Jews.
Why is it acceptable to assume that all property in the possession of Jews must necessarily have been stolen rather than purchased? Would journalistic standards allow accepting uncritically a claim regarding any other ethnic group that they may be safely assumed to all be thieves?
Joshua Cappell
New York
Oct. 7 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Justice Department subpoenaed Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and other financial companies to determine if the bank misled investors before its Sept. 15 bankruptcy filing, according to people familiar with the matter.
ReplyDeleteSubpoenas also went to Ernst & Young LLP, Lehman's auditor; U.K.-based Barclays Plc, which bought Lehman's North American brokerage; and the New Jersey Division of Investments, which runs a pension fund that lost $115.6 million on a $180 million investment in a $6 billion stock offering by the bank in June, the people said.
Prosecutors at the U.S. Attorney's Office in Newark, New Jersey, are seeking documents to determine whether Lehman failed to fully disclose its eroding financial condition at the time of the offering, according to the people. Building a fraud case around such disclosures could be difficult for the Justice Department, according to former federal prosecutors.
``For a criminal case, they would need to show that at the time of this offering, Lehman knew some bad facts that it didn't tell everybody,'' said former prosecutor Christopher Clark. ``That will probably be fairly difficult to show. The fact that Lehman was in some financial distress was known to everyone in the world.''
Lehman filed the biggest-ever bankruptcy amid a credit- market crisis that also forced the sale of Merrill Lynch & Co. to Bank of America.
Other Subpoenas
The subpoenas also went to Putnam Investments LLC, the Boston-based mutual fund firm that oversees about $163 billion and bought Lehman bonds and shares; New York-based fund manager BlackRock Inc., a Lehman creditor; American International Group Inc., once the world's largest insurer; and C.V. Starr & Co., which is run by Maurice Greenberg, former chief executive officer of AIG, according to the people.
New Jersey Attorney General Anne Milgram also is examining Lehman, according to spokesman David Wald.
``We are actively looking at Lehman Brothers and at least one additional bank that did business with the state of New Jersey,'' Wald said.
Prosecutors outside of New Jersey, including at the U.S. Attorney's Office in Brooklyn are also examining Lehman, according to the people.
U.S. Stocks Drop; S&P 500, Dow Post Worst Retreats Since 1937
ReplyDeleteBy Elizabeth Stanton and Eric Martin
Oct. 7 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. stocks fell, sending the Standard & Poor's 500 Index below 1,000 for the first time since 2003, on speculation banks and real-estate companies are running short of money as the credit crisis worsens.
Bank of America Corp. tumbled 26 percent after cutting its dividend in half and saying it plans to sell $10 billion in common stock to brace for a recession. Morgan Stanley, KeyCorp and JPMorgan Chase & Co. slid more than 10 percent as investors shrugged off signs the Federal Reserve will reduce interest rates. General Growth Properties Inc., a mall owner, plunged 42 percent on concern it won't be able to repay debt.
The S&P 500 slid 60.66 points, or 5.7 percent, to 996.23, extending its 2008 tumble to 32 percent in the market's worst yearly slump since 1937. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 508.39, or 5.1 percent, to 9,447.11, giving it a 29 percent retreat in 2008 that would also be the worst in 71 years. The Nasdaq Composite Index lost 5.8 percent to 1,754.88.
``We've approached the edge of the cliff,'' Leon Cooperman, 65, who manages $6 billion at hedge fund Omega Advisors Inc., said at the Value Investing Congress in New York. ``Do we go over the cliff or begin to recede? History says we recede, but there's no guarantee. This is the most difficult financial environment I've lived through.''
http://www.nydailynews.com/money/2008/10/06/2008-10-06_jim_cramer_not_always_on_the_money.html
ReplyDeleteJim Cramer not always on the money
DAILY NEWS STAFF
Monday, October 6th 2008, 9:58 PM
TV money maven Jim Cramer is known for his rants and his stock picks. His batting average is respectable, but he's wrong a lot, too:
CNBC briefly suspended Cramer in 1998 while it investigated the selloff in shares of dot-com WavePhore, which he had blasted on the air. Cramer did not own the stock and, true to his prediction, the shares are worthless.
In an Aug. 7, 2007, rant, Cramer furiously called for Ben Bernanke to cut interest rates, calling the Fed boss "nuts" - among other things. The Fed eventually began cutting rates.
"Bear Stearns is not in trouble!" Cramer told his loyal audience on March 11. Shares closed that day at $62.97. Five days later, shares plunged to under $4, before JPMorgan Chase bought the bank for $10 a share.
Cramer touted Wachovia last month - just ahead of a two-week slide that brought the bank's shares down to 75 cents from more than $10. "I let you down, because I wasn't skeptical enough," Cramer said.
OK, I was mekabel the musser. UOJ is set right next to my stock ticker now.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nydailynews.com/money/2008/10/06/2008-10-06_no_bull_jim_cramer_says_get_out_of_stock.html
No bull: Jim Cramer says get out of stocks now
It is worthwhile to post Rabbi Yaakov Horowitz' latest rant in its entirety. At last, he assails our so-called "leaders" who say "not to worry about this since there are only an infinitesimal number of frum pedophiles." I wonder which "leaders" he's referring to? Can it be that he's finally breaking away from the Agudah? It's about time.
ReplyDeleteMonsey, NY - Since the news broke about the arrest of a heimishe man, for repeatedly doing unspeakable things to a girl/young woman over many years, people have been asking me the same question again and again, “Could this possibly be true?”
To all worried parents and community members who are asking this question; my unequivocal answer is, “YES.” Period. Exclamation point.
I do not know any specifics of this particular ghoulish tale other than what I read in the hair-raising copy of the federal indictment but I have heard far more than one or two stories like this one from credible, heimishe people in the past. (For the record; I always ask the victims to go straight to the police and report the abusers.) So even if this story is not true – and it is beyond naïve to think that federal agents would convene a grand jury and make an arrest like this one, merely on the say-so of a vindictive family member, without substantive forensic proof – the terribly sad fact is that it most certainly could be true.
It is exactly these types of horrible stories that I was referring to in the opening lines of my column in the Jewish Press a month ago titled, L'maan Hashem, What Will it Take? Here are the first two sentences of that column: "It is difficult to describe the sickening, gut-wrenching sensation I experience when I get phone calls from parents whose children were sexually abused or from adults who have carried the horrible scars of childhood abuse for decades, often shredding their relationships and ruining their lives. And, I am sad to report that those calls are getting more frequent as time goes on."
If your children are married and out of your home, feel free to join those who blame these stories on “Anti-Semitic, goyishe newspapers,” and “Self-hating-Jews-who-love-to-bash-charedim.” Or, you can join those who would rather stay clueless and say things like, “Wow, did you hear that story? Please pass the salt.” You can also trust the ‘leaders’ who tell you not to worry about this since there are only an infinitesimal number of frum pedophiles. But, if you are a parent still entrusted with the care of your children, please read the non-airbrushed story in the secular newspapers and be frightened. Very, very frightened.
I suggest that you develop a mental image of a deranged frum adult walking around your neighborhood with pruning shears viciously cutting off the index fingers of any children that he can get his hands on. Then imagine seeing hundreds of frum kids walking around with bloody bandages around their hands. Are you sufficiently terrified now? Well, that is a tamed down version of how I see things as far as the abuse/molestation issue is concerned. Because these evil monsters that molest our innocent children and the soulless, immoral people who cover for them are cutting out the very neshomos of the poor kids whose lives they ruin.
I honestly do not have the time or emotional energy at this moment to write yet another column on abuse. As far as I am concerned, I have already written and lectured more than enough on the subject. (I encourage you to read these columns that I’ve written on this matter – The Monster Inside, Safe and Secure, Human Problems. Also, here is a clip of a radio interview I gave recently on abuse.)
I am heartbroken that so few others in our community have had the courage to do what I have done, and that there are still charedi publications and websites that refuse to discuss this life-threatening, colossal threat to our children. I am also perpetually stunned that our communal anger is deflected from the predators and directed at those who courageously try to improve things.
All I can do is to beg all parents b’chol loshon shel bakasha to take this issue seriously and, l’maan Hashem, please start protecting each and every child of yours as if his or her very life depends on it.
Because it does.
Now listen carefully to what I'm going to say here. I'm no angle and I'm surely not g-d to know what lies in the hearts of man. I will however say that 2 and 1/2 years ago when I helped expose my molester and run him out of the country, I was met with the same incredulous resistance and ignorant disbelief on the part of those who benefited spiritualy from that "rabbi". Again, I will not judge this case. However to me it looks IDENTICAL to the masses reaction to my accusations and the accusations of the other boys. BUT I KNEW THAT I WAS RIGHT. And those who supported the rabbi hurt me so much that I "blessed" those protecting him with harsh things that I myself am now scared to repeat. The support my molester got from the community drove this grown man to tears more than once. Tread carefully, for if the victims are telling a true story and they see what effort and length people go to cover for a molester the pain and hurt becomes magnified a thousandfull. Then you are bringing on the wrath of g-d for these victims and parents will call out to hashem for his intervention in this tragic travisty. Be carefull.
ReplyDeleteWe received a request to post the following letter.
ReplyDeleteDear Rabbi Levitansky; Shlit"a
I am writing to you as a concerned parent.
Please forgive me for choosing (for now) to remain anonymous. I am afraid to confront you directly as I don't want my son to suffer repercussions.
I plan to call Mr. Harry Brown and inquire what is the truth of these goings on. I know him for many years to be sincerely dedicated to Telshe Yeshiva and not given to irrational excitement and false accusations! He would never do anything that was unfounded or not in the best interest of Telshe Yeshiva! I am also recommending to other parents who have children in the Yeshiva to do the same. His phone number is: 216.363.4606.
But will Rabbi Levitansky please honestly answer the following question:
A number of people have told me that this young man was quietly sent for therapy (to JL in Chicago?). Now if as you insist "NOTHING HAPPENED" and you were advised by your (Chicago) lawyer (and Chicago Rabbi!) to take no action and vehemently deny the reliability of the boy who told you he was propositioned to "pull his pants down" so that this young man can "check if he is a 'halachik adult'" can you then please explain to me, why did you arrange for this young man to go for therapy?! Do you usually send 'innocent normal' people who do "NOTHING WRONG" for psychological counseling?!
Rabbi Levitansky, I mean this with the greatest of respect. Thank God, the targeted victim was emotionally resilient enough to fend off being molested (and therefore technically "NOTHING ACTUALLY HAPPENED") but in what way could that possibly justify your not immediately and completely removing any further possible contact or interaction, with this potentialy dangerous threat, from my son and all the other boys in the Yeshiva that we entrusted to your care?
Did you really first need an actual molestation to "HAPPEN" leaving in its wake an emotionally damaged molested child, before you would take action and protect the remaining young men you are legally and halachikly responsible for?!
RABBI LEVITANSKY, PLEASE TELL ME THE TRUTH? WOULD YOU ALLOW YOUR SON TO SPEND THE NIGHT IN A DORMITORY ROOM ALONE WITH THIS MAN?!
http://rischandioraysa.blogspot.com
ReplyDeleteCheck out how the Gedolah Torah
at Telz Yeshiva behave.
Sir Vivor, your kapores with the ketanim had me rolling on the floor, thanks for the good laugh,
ReplyDeleteA gmar chasima tova to all of you out there, UOJ Chazak Chazak!!
R'LVF, Sir Vivor,
ReplyDeleteG'mar chasima tova
B'yididus,
UOJ
Levitansky is a mushchus from day one. He failed in kiruv in Migdal Torah in Chicago, and failed even more in chinuch. Shmuck, get out of the proffession.
ReplyDeleteSending the perp to Jerry Lob is like going to a plumber to do an angioplasty. Jerry deals with rebuilding survivors, not kashering molesters.
The Chicago "Rabbi" is A.C. Levin of Wainhaus fame.
But who in hell is the Chicago lawyer who suggested this???
http://www.nydailynews.com/money/2008/10/07/2008-10-07_chief_aig_shareholder_calls_in_sick_for_.html
ReplyDeleteChief AIG shareholder calls in sick for appearace before Congressional committee
Maurice "Hank" Greenberg
http://capitalnews9.com/content/top_stories/125602/more-sex-abuse-charges-for-rabbi/Default.aspx
ReplyDeleteIn a statement from Rabbi Weiss, he says the accusations are completely untrue and says someone is trying to retaliate against him
http://timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=727340
Chabad leader's abuse case widens
Rabbi's son among the alleged victims; accused says vendetta is at work
By MARC PARRY, Staff writer
First published in print: Wednesday, October 8, 2008
ALBANY — A Loudonville rabbi faced fresh sex-abuse charges on Tuesday – and his lawyer confirmed the father of one of the alleged victims is another local rabbi.
Yaakov Weiss appeared in Albany City Court on the day before the Yom Kippur high holiday to answer charges that he sexually abused a 13-year-old boy.
The 28-year-old rabbi, founder of the Chabad of Colonie, e-mailed the Times Union a statement on Tuesday night calling the accusations "100 percent untrue."
"This has been generated by an individual who has been antagonistic toward Chabad of Colonie from its inception and continues to be envious of continued success," Weiss wrote. "This is his way of getting rid of us."
Weiss carried an infant child into the courthouse and prayed in the vestibule. He later appeared in the courtroom in handcuffs, pleading not guilty to misdemeanor charges of sexual abuse and endangering the welfare of a child.
The charges stem from "inappropriate sexual contact" with the boy in June on Whitehall Road, according to Albany police.
Weiss was released without bail and drove away in a silver SUV.
Weiss adheres to the Chabad-Lubavitch branch of Judaism, known for its outreach work to get Jews more involved in their religion. He moved to Colonie from Iowa in 2004 with his wife Rosa and an infant daughter. He founded the Chabad of Colonie and the Chabad Hebrew School soon after.
Tuesday's charges come one week after Weiss was arrested for allegedly abusing another 13-year-old boy.
The rabbi's new accuser is a member of the same religious community as Weiss, said Dave Rossi, chief of the homicide and special victims bureau in the Albany County District Attorney's Office.
Rossi wouldn't discuss any other details about their relationship or where the alleged abuse took place. Authorities restricted access to all court papers in the case.
Weiss's attorney, Arnold Proskin, also declined to reveal more details beyond his claim that the father of one of Weiss's alleged victims is a rabbi -- a claim Rossi would not confirm.
"I think you're going to find some very strange, strange reasons for these things happening," he said outside the courtroom.
In his statement, Weiss characterized the accusations as a plot concocted by the unnamed "envious" individual.
"This individual contacted the authorities three months ago together with a close friend," Weiss claimed. "His new allegations were released today."
Rossi said the investigation was continuing but he was unaware of any other victims.
Weiss has been suspended, said Rabbi Yehuda Krinsky, chairman of Merkos L'inyonei Chinuch, the educational arm of the Brooklyn-based worldwide Lubavitch organization.
"I would emphasize very unequivocally that the suspension is in no way whatsoever implicating him or an admission or a decision of guilt," he said.
Marc Parry can be reached at 454-5057 or mparry@timesunion.com
http://www.volunteertv.com/home/headlines/30584234.html
ReplyDeleteRisk of domestic violence increases as economy worsens
http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?articleID=20081007_11_A6_hBusdr512637
ReplyDeleteBus driver arrested after crash kills 8 passengers
Sorry, but Shafran advised us to cover this up.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.haber27.com/news_detail.php?id=12807
Hackers crack ATM PIN codes to steal millions
Millions of bank customers face a new threat to their money after it emerged yesterday that hackers had cracked PIN codes used in cash machines.
Citibank machines in 7-Eleven convenience stores across America were the target of the biggest and most effective remote PIN code theft scam in US banking history between last autumn and this spring when at least $2 million (£1 million) was stolen.
Details of the fraud have only now been made public, as the case makes its way through the US District Court for the Southern District of New York.
The infrastructure is now built on Microsoft’s Windows operating system, and the cash machines themselves can be remotely diagnosed and repaired online. Unfortunately, this means that PIN codes have started to “leak” along the way — suggesting that industry guidelines on encryption are not always being followed.
So far it is not clear how many Citibank customers were affected by the hackers. The bank has nearly 5,700 Citibank-branded cash machines inside 7-Eleven stores, but it does not own or operate any of them. The maintenance of the machines is carried out by two companies: Cardtronics, based in Texas, and Fiserve, based in Wisconsin.
It remains unknown — or at least undisclosed — exactly how the hackers infiltrated the closely guarded computer network, although it has been confirmed that they broke in through a server at a third-party processing company, meaning they almost certainly did not have to go anywhere near a cash machine or a 7-Eleven store. Once they obtained the PIN codes, the hackers could then simply make blank cards and use them to withdraw funds from compromised accounts at virtually any cash machine in the country.
Here's how fluid things are: Last week, Iceland nationalized Glitnir, the country's third-largest bank. Today, it unnationalized Glitnir, putting it into receivership instead: Clearly the bank's liabilities were too large for the Icelandic government to take on.
ReplyDeleteYesterday, Iceland pegged its currency to the euro; today it unpegged the currency, saying "there is insufficient support for this exchange rate".
And all those promises about Iceland backstopping deposits at its banks?
"The Icelandic government, believe it or not, have told me yesterday they have no intention of honoring their obligations here," [British Chancellor Alistair] Darling told the British Broadcasting Corp.
Iceland is a wealthy country and they are completely unashamed about defaulting.
What happens when all the 2nd & 3rd World crapper countries start defaulting and refuse to pay back their US loans?
Trading on both Russian stock markets halted!
ReplyDeleteWednesday October 8, 10:37 am
By Catrina Stewart, Associated Press Writer
Russia's MICEX shuts until Friday after steep opening losses, RTS until further notice
MOSCOW (AP) -- Trading on both Russian stock markets was halted on Wednesday after shares plunged within an hour of opening on fears the credit crisis will take a heavy toll on growth.
MICEX, where most trading takes place, was shut until Friday after it dropped more than 14 percent to 637.9 points in the first half-hour of trading. The RTS index -- which has lost more than 69 percent since its May peak -- has been shut down until further notice. It fell 11.3 percent in the first half-hour, dropping to 761.6 points.
Both exchanges have suspended trading on several occasions in recent weeks in a bid to stem steep slides in share prices.
Investors have withdrawn billions of dollars from Russia's oil-fueled economy since its war with Georgia in August. Sliding oil prices and concerns about the depth of the financial and economic woes in Europe and the U.S. have sent shares into freefall in recent weeks, contributing to the Russian markets' worst-ever day of trading on Monday.
"It looks like the crash in the West is happening this week," said Eric Kraus, an adviser to Otkrytiye brokerage. "Until that is behind us, we cannot expect any degree of rationality in the Russian financial markets."
The government is now battling with its most serious financial test since the 1998 collapse, and has announced a series of measures to pump liquidity into the stricken banking system and restore confidence in the markets. It has announced more than $200 billion in loans and relief since the crisis escalated in September.
Policy makers have sought to get liquidity moving through the banking system via state-backed lenders amid signs that many businesses are unable to access funding, either because it is unavailable to them or interest rates are too high. Many businesses have pared back investment plans, laid staff off and cut production.
"The credit-sensitive sectors are grinding to a halt, and that process is now spreading," said David Aserkoff, strategist at Renaissance Capital. He said it was possible Russia could face recession if the situation continues.
"How do you go from 8 percent to zero percent? Throw in falling oil production too. It's difficult, but it's not impossible, to imagine that Russia could fall into a recession at some point in the next nine months," Aserkoff said.
As policy makers in Europe and the U.S. scrambled to coordinate interest rate policy to shore up confidence, President Dmitry Medvedev called for a stronger role for financial regulators, auditors and ratings agencies to combat the global financial crisis.
After they blew the half million, AIG told Congress that $85 billion wasn't enough for the bailout.
ReplyDeleteRegistered sex offenders have to tell where they are living and are limited in where they can work. These financial crooks need to be registered and limited in their ability to even handle money. Then, after serving a term in the pen and paying back with EVERYTHING they own, they can be given a job at the sewage treatment plant.
Bill/Boris you putz, we told you not to go to Russia.
ReplyDeleteIt seems that the Dow made a comeback after chatzos when heimishe Yidden stop trading. After they finished bailing out the other fressers could come in at the lows.
ReplyDeletehttp://gothamist.com/2008/10/08/fbi_body_is_of_colombo_underboss.php
ReplyDeleteA forensic dentist confirmed a body found at a Long Island site is that of William "Wild Bill" Cutolo, former Colombo crime family underboss. Newsday reports that Cutolo, who led the Local 400 and lived in Staten Island, "disappeared in 1999 and was believed to have been a victim in a war for control of the Colombo family...which resulted in more than a dozen murders." And the Staten Island Advance recounted a previous attempted hit on Cutolo: "the assassins dressed as Hasidic Jews, hoping to execute Cutolo as he sat in a restaurant in Borough Park."
http://www.forward.com/articles/14313/
ReplyDeleteChabad Pushes Big Development in L.A.
Chevrah Hanhallas Telshe Cleveland v'Chicago who read this blog regularly, pass this message on to your great rabbonim:
ReplyDeleteRav Aron Levitansky and his brain trust in Chicago Rav Avrohom Chaim Levin had better watch what they are doing. It's bad enough that they both planned together to coverup the yungerman's perverse behaviors and failed to protect the other bochrim in his care. But to withhold the pension paycheck of Rav Mordechai Gifter's rebbetzin who has done absolutely nothing wrong to in any way deserve what's happening to her is an abomination.
Vos far a chutzpah is dos? You azei panim u'kshei oiref hut the chutzpah tzu zein matzaier an almanah. Almanos have a special place neged kisai hakavod. Mer tornisht matzair an almanah.
Oh great men of intellect Rabbis Levin and Levitansky the handwriting is on the wall for you to see, if Rav Gifter's rebbetzin is not paid every penny owed to her by Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan...........
GM shares tumble 31 percent to 58-year low
ReplyDeleteBy DAN STRUMPF,AP
Posted: 2008-10-09 19:07:13
NEW YORK (AP) - Shares of General Motors Corp. lost nearly one-third of their value Thursday, plunging to their lowest level in more than 58 years after Standard & Poor's said the automaker's credit could fall further into junk status due to the "rapidly weakening state" of the global automotive market.
GM shares plummeted $2.15, or 31.1 percent, to close at $4.76 after falling as low as $4.65. That low marked the automaker's lowest trade since March 15, 1950, according to the Center for Research in Security Prices at the University of Chicago. At that time, the Korean War was three months away from beginning, and gasoline cost 27 cents a gallon.
In the closing minutes of trading Thursday, Standard & Poor's Rating Services placed GM and its finance arm, GMAC, on "CreditWatch Negative," meaning a downgrade of its "B-" long-term corporate credit ratings could be forthcoming.
S&P did the same to Ford Motor Co., helping send the Dearborn, Mich., company's stock down 58 cents, or 21.8 percent, Thursday to close at $2.08. It had fallen as low as $2.03 earlier in the session, it's lowest price since June 1, 1983.
GM is also now the smallest of the 30 stocks that make up the Dow Jones industrial average, and it no longer meets one of the criteria - $4 billion or more in market cap - to join the Standard & Poor's 500 Index. S&P spokesman Dave Guarino declined to say if GM was in danger of being removed from the index because such announcements often move a stock.
http://www.forbes.com/home/2008/10/09/national-city-closer-markets-equity-cx_lal_1009markets30.html
ReplyDeleteNow that Washington Mutual and Wachovia have been scooped up by bigger financial players, investors are wondering who will come to the rescue of National City. If a buyer does emerge, it isn't likely to want to pay much.
Miller Tabak analyst Tom Mitchell said that National City has been on the market for some time without any takers. He had expected the bank to go for $3 per share, but doesn't expect it will get that much now if it manages to draw a bid at all.
Most National City's branches are located in the Midwest where the local economies have been hit hard by the failing auto sector. Mitchell said that the bank was having a hard time conducting business in the region even when the economy was not doing poorly. The company was able to unload most of its bad loans in a sale of its mortgage branch, First Franklin, to Merrill Lynch, but it didn't get rid of all of its exposure to the residential market. Mitchell estimated that National City has $18.0 million to $20.0 million in future losses.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/10/09/toofat.execution.appeal.ap/index.html
ReplyDeleteThe Ohio Supreme Court has rejected arguments that a death row inmate is too fat to die by lethal injection.
UOJ, Thanx for thinking of me. We will survive and we will thrive. Happy Holidays! Were sure to have a great year. These passed weeks have been a boon for the UOJ Center for the Hunting Down and Disposale of Molesters.
ReplyDeleteLVF, Nice to see u are on top of things. Gimme a shout out, wouldya? Laughter IS the best medicine. Especially and the expense of these goons we are dealing with.
This Telshe story needs elucidation and clarification. Isn't Mondrowitz a passed product of Telshe Chicago? BTW, does anyone remember the station Mondrowitz aired his show on and what his slogan was that he signed off with?
ReplyDeleteIceland suspends stock exchange trading, takes control of third bank as crisis escalates
ReplyDeleteREYKJAVIK, Iceland (AP) -- Iceland suspended trading on its stock exchange for two days and took control of the country's largest bank -- the third to be placed under its protective umbrella -- on Thursday as it grappled with a banking crisis that is threatening to engulf the entire country.
Shafran is so terrified of Rubashkin's bad behavior being exposed that he is willing to put up with all the avlos they do.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/12/magazine/12kosher-t.html
Avi Shafran, a spokesman for Agudath Israel, told me that if kashrut is framed as simply an ethical practice, or as a practice with any specific function other than obeying God’s law, it could set the stage for the practice to ultimately be discarded.
Samantha M. Shapiro is a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/oct/08/home-heating-cost-to-rise-this-winter/
ReplyDeleteHeating U.S. homes with oil this winter will cost $450 more than a year ago, another slap to families already reeling from high gasoline and food costs and fearful of losing their heat because of unpaid bills.
Gas, propane and electricity for home heating will go up as well, but not as much, the government says.
Even as oil prices are plummeting and plenty of natural gas is going into storage, people should brace for higher heating bills "across the board" no matter what fuel is used or region of the country, said Howard Gruenspecht, acting chief of the federal Energy Information Administration.
But fuel oil users — about a third of households in the Northeast — will experience the biggest hit with an expected heating bill of $2,388 on average for the October-March heating season, or 23 percent higher than what it cost last winter.
The price of natural gas, the most widely used heating fuel used in half of the nation's households, will increase an average of 18 percent, or $1,010 over the heating season — about $155 more than last winter. People who heat with propane or electricity will see a 10 percent to 11 percent increase in costs, the agency said.
Natural gas supplies will be plentiful this winter, with storage in November expected to be well above the five-year average, and prices have dropped below what they were a year ago. But many utilities purchased gas for storage this past summer when prices were at their peak and will pass those costs onto customers this winter.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122358833298120607.html
ReplyDeleteOCTOBER 10, 2008
Hungarian Bond Market Breaks Down
By MARGIT FEHER in Budapest and MARCUS WALKER in Berlin
Trading in Hungary's government bond market broke down as buyers practically disappeared from a 10-year auction and the government raised less than planned.
No prices were being quoted on the stock exchange or between primary dealers, traders said. "This market has come to a complete halt. It has collapsed; everyone is trying to sell but no one is buying," one trader said.
Many Hungarian households and businesses have borrowed money in foreign currencies, so the falling forint saddles them with higher debt repayments.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122359538059121169.html
ReplyDeleteOCTOBER 10, 2008
At Morgan Stanley, Outlook Darkens; Stock Tumbles 26%
By SUSANNE CRAIG, MATTHEW KARNITSCHNIG and AARON LUCCHETTI
The sharks are circling closer to Morgan Stanley.
Shares of the financial behemoth sank 26% Thursday as concern escalated among investors about its future and other banks. Morgan Stanley depends on heavy borrowing and holds risky securities. The stock has plunged 77% this year to a 10-year low. Hedge-fund clients have pulled about one-third of their money from the firm in recent weeks. The cost of protecting against a Morgan Stanley default has surged. The firm can't issue new debt.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1074191/Rampant-Rabbi-Seven-wives-children-happy-messiah--meet-Britains-unorthodox-family.html
ReplyDeleteRampant Rabbi: Seven wives, eight children and one very happy 'messiah' - meet Britain's most unorthodox family
By Natalie Clarke
Last updated at 9:15 AM on 09th October 2008
The Rebbe would like to offer a special birchas Mazel Tov to our chushuve mispallel Eli Goldwasser on the engagement of his son to the daughter of the gor chosheve mishpachas Levitansky of Cleveland. The two mishpuchas fit like two peas in a pod.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.forward.com/articles/14358/
ReplyDeleteIn this season of Jewish repentance, Israel has been captivated by a debate about religious forgiveness for the people who might be thought to need it most: criminals.
Just before the High Holy Days began, the Ashkenazic chief rabbi of Israel, Yona Metzger, pointed to what he and some others have said is secular Jews’ trend of pretending to be religious in order to curry favor with judges. In a now infamous case that came to trial earlier this year, a teenager accused of murder showed up in court wearing a yarmulke, drawing an angry outburst from the murdered woman’s mother.
Speaking at an annual pre-Rosh Hashanah ceremony for police commissioners and security officials, Metzger said that the trend he described “is an abuse of religion and a complete disregard of the judges’ intelligence.”
“If someone has committed a crime and truly wished to repent, it is, by all means, the right thing to do,” Metzger said. “But this new thing we’re seeing, where killers are arrested and then they wear a kipah when appearing before the judge, is despicable.”
The particular use of religion that Metzger spoke about arises in part out of the flexibility in the Israeli courts. While most crimes in America come with clear sentencing guidelines, Israeli experts said that judges in their country have much more discretion.
“Here in Israel, until now we have had a traditional open system where there is a maximum sentence and the judge uses discretion,” said Leslie Sebba, a criminologist at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem who is an expert on Israel’s penal code.
While it is impossible to compile statistics on what effect displays of religiosity have on judges and parole boards, experts believe that given the Israeli penal system’s commitment to rehabilitation rather than punishment, the displays do work in a criminal’s favor.
“It certainly helps,” said Moshe Addad, a criminologist at Bar-Ilan University. “A judge taking it into account in a murder case may give seven years instead of 10.”
The phenomenon that Metzger pointed to has come up in numerous cases, including hearings involving the Alperon family of Givat Shmuel outside Tel Aviv, which is alleged to have businesses that apply extortion and strong-arm tactics.
“It’s so common that people don’t remember the cases,” said Uri Timor, a Bar-Ilan University criminologist who is an expert on religion in Israeli prisons. The one case that was singled out for widespread media coverage, however, was when the teenager accused of killing young attorney Anat Pliner entered court last June wearing a yarmulke. The trial is ongoing.
“All of a sudden he puts on a yarmulke,” Pliner’s mother, Tehiya Aharoni, yelled at the defendant, according to press reports at the time. “All of a sudden he is religious. Does everyone who commits murder become religious? Murderer!” She later screamed: “Murderer! Take off the yarmulke! Don’t disgrace the religion!”
Tel Aviv University’s Shlomo Shoham, widely considered Israel’s leading criminologist, said that Metzger was right in drawing attention to a trend.
“Most of it is manipulation,” Shoham said. “All kids and murderers show up with kipot and peyot [side curls]. There are some true cases, but they are rare.”
Shoham said that such religious transformation, whether or not it’s real, provides benefits not only in sentencing, but also in prison, where religious prisoners receive exemption from work for study and for Sabbaths, as well as better food.
While this depiction raises alarm among distressed relatives of not only victims, but also the likes of Metzger and Shoham, others see it as the strength of Israel’s penal system.
Timor said that any pressure to seek out religion could help criminals overcome the problems that got them there in the first place. His research suggests that while 70% of Israeli prisoners return to prison within five years, among prisoners in religious wards the figure is only 10%.
“If they put on the kipah and stay with it in prison, it changes them,” Timor said. “It arouses anger, but I say, why? Sometimes they become the person they are projecting.”
Fishel Jacobs, a Chabad rabbi who sat on parole boards during his 14 years as a prison chaplain, said that religious observance is a factor considered by the boards. Jacobs also admitted that inmates are often attracted to synagogues for the perks they offer. He noted, however, that the interest in religion tends to become genuine.
“I don’t think it’s the job of the chief rabbi of Israel to question anyone’s motive for wearing a skullcap at any given time,” Jacobs said.
I'm trying to get into the Otisville Club Fed to hang out with the Frankel's Shul putzes.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081010/COMM/810100357/-1/NEWS
The feds have much more than just a five-count indictment against Rabbi Israel Weingarten. They've got a pile of court papers that include allegations of misdeeds done to his fellow Satmar Hasidim in Kiryas Joel years before the indictment was unsealed Monday. And that's why two federal judges have ordered Weingarten to be held without bail at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, after FBI agents had to kick down two doors to arrest the barricaded Weingarten at his home in Monsey Monday morning.
Weingarten is accused of taking a teenage relative overseas for the purpose of sexually abusing her in 1997. A federal grand jury indicted him in Brooklyn Aug. 18 on five charges of traveling across U.S. borders and overseas to have sex with the relative. Brooklyn also has a large Satmar community, and Weingarten once taught in a private religious school there.
Weingarten's accuser came forward in 2003, when she was 22, according to court papers. She told the FBI that Weingarten began abusing her when she was 9, according to a memo prepared by federal prosecutors Rachel Nash and Andrea Goldbarg to support their request for Weingarten to be held without bail.
Although Weingarten was arrested in Monsey, the feds say that he piled up the frequent-flier miles, moving among Satmar communities in Belgium, Israel and England to avoid being confronted by members of his family and his community. Prosecutors wanted him held without bail because the indictment gives him a major incentive to beat feet. If he's convicted, the feds contend that sentencing guidelines would put him in prison for at least 14 years.
The feds say that in 2003, when Weingarten lived in Kiryas Joel, he and some of his friends "forcibly removed the Kiryas Joel public safety director from the Weingarten home when he attempted to investigate a tip that one of Weingarten's daughters (not the sexual-abuse victim) was screaming in pain."
Court papers also say that when Weingarten's sister-in-law filed assault charges against him in 2002, "she received threatening phone calls telling her that she would be arrested unless she dropped the charges." The papers also say he branded his accuser a "fantasizer," so that her complaints would be taken as childish fantasies.
The prosecutors added that, "in Belgium, he ran his own Satmar school, and in the United States in 2002, he was employed by the Yeshiva and Mesivta Torah Temimah, an elementary and secondary school in Brooklyn. Unless he is detained, it will be difficult to prevent him from seeking such employment, because the Satmar schools do not operate under government control."
Ken Gribetz, the former Rockland County district attorney who represented Weingarten during an arraignment Monday, was unable to convince U.S. Magistrate Judge Joan Azrack to spring Weingarten on an electronic monitoring bracelet. Gribetz said that Family Court proceedings against Weingarten were dismissed, and he flatly denied the sexual abuse allegations.
"Essentially, our contention is that he's innocent of all these charges, that the matter had been originally in Orange County Family Court, that the matter was transferred to Rockland and that Child Protective Services found that the allegations were unfounded," Gribetz said Wednesday.
"I've spoken to six of his children, and they absolutely adore their father. This is the result of a very, very bitter divorce that's been litigated on three continents — in Israel, Belgium and the United States."
The feds say that Weingarten didn't exactly cooperate with Child Protective Services, hiding his children and failing to produce them for a week. Caseworkers had to call police in Orange, Rockland and Westchester counties before they finally tracked down the children, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.
On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge John Gleeson denied a request for Weingarten to be moved from confinement in Brooklyn to the federal prison in Otisville. But Gleeson also said that the issue of where Weingarten is held, and whether he should be freed on bond, could be revisited when Weingarten makes his next federal court appearance in Brooklyn, at 2 p.m. Tuesday.
Trials & Tribulations is the Times Herald-Record's weekly roundup of news, updates and anecdotes about local courts and criminal justice. Tips and threats are welcome. Call Oliver Mackson at 346-3130 or e-mail omackson@th-record.com.
There is no real jewish leadership who have the guts to come out and defend our children Rabbi Lipa Marguelis knows one of his Rebbe's teaching young children is protecting his nephew who molested his own son. This has caused his son to go into depression, drug rehab and a host of other issues. Is this Rebbe qualified to guide the minds of young children? Especially based on the track record of Torah Temimah's protection of abusers?
ReplyDeleteI hope schools such as Torah Temimah
ReplyDeletefail. The school harbored sex offenders and knowingly protects their Rebbes rather than the children. Why parents are so scared of these bully Rebbes are beyond me.
I intend to contact Dov Hikind and offer my help so as parents can get help without fear. Thank you for this website that allows the unsaid to be said. There is a sexual predator who abused his cousin as a teenager and is now living in Lakewood, married with children. He never received help for his past deeds. Do you think he is recovered or continuing what he started as a teenager? These are the families that need to be helped