CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE:
*Crook-lyn DA Charles Hynes*
As Israel's Supreme Court approaches a final decision on whether or not to extradite Mondrowitz to stand trial in Brooklyn -- we're talking about the man police believe sodomized or sexually abused hundreds of boys, nearly all Jewish -- the silence around the process is deafening! All the more so because things may not be going smoothly.
We know Mondrowitz has powerful supporters in Israel. And the shameful record of Brooklyn D.A. Charles J. Hynes in this case shows he'd be only too happy never to have to prosecute Mondrowitz... never to have to expose his enablers and accomplices in the community... never shine a light on a case his office has avoided ever since he took office. Well, IF WE STAY QUIET -- HE MAY NOT HAVE TO!!!
The Jewish Week is already reporting that Israel's top court may be considering a "compromise" by which Mondrowitz isn't sent back -- and gets tried, IF AT ALL, in Israel... probably meaning a much lighter sentence, and certainly keeping other guilty parties -- the D.A., Ohel, the rabbis who covered for Mondrowitz for years, and anybody he may have traded victims or kid porn with (who knows?) -- conveniently out of the picture.
I've learned more. And it's not comforting!
Israel's Supreme Court has ordered the State's attorneys (who have been pushing for extradition) to file additional papers by TUESDAY, DECEMBER 23. The judges -- who apparently didn't manage to read the record or the lower court's 40-page decision that explained in detail why Mondrowitz should be sent back for trial -- are suddenly worried that the alleged child rapist's "rights" may be jeopardized if he gets sent back so many years after his crimes were allegedly committed. Never mind that his prosecution is certainly timely under New York law -- because he was a fugitive since 1984, New York's "speedy trial" time limit didn't run. But maybe, asked the judges, it's all America's fault, not the alleged rapist's? Maybe America caused all the trouble by not renewing the extradition request until 2007?
Now, remember: NOBODY wanted Mondrowitz put on trial until WE got active and started demanding it -- with information in our hands provided by committed people like attorney Michael Lesher and Mark Weiss, and Michael's other (anonymous) clients. Israel refused Elizabeth Holtzman's extradition request in 1985; the Shas Party's Yitzchak Peretz refused to deport Mondrowitz after that; Roni Milo, the next Interior Minister, refused to deport Mondrowitz in 1987 after promising he would; then Charles Hynes got elected D.A. in 1989 and pulled the plug on the case.
Remember how the documents Michael Lesher finally extracted from the State Department showed that Hynes closed the Mondrowitz case, saying he wouldn't seek Mondrowitz as long as he stayed in Israel? Because he knew damn well that Israel didn't want him brought to justice any more than Hynes did!
Well, they still don't want it -- and now the dodge they seem to be trying is claiming that since America dropped the ball on the extradition request, it's not fair to Mondrowitz to send him back to Brooklyn after all... now that a wised-up community is not just listening to the Herbert Bomzers and other "rabbis" who said (you saw it on TV!) "Leave him alone." We want justice! -- and they know it -- and that's exactly what they DON'T want.
Okay: the facts. Michael has given me permission to post two things here. One is a copy of a document that proves the "America dropped the ball" argument is false. Oh yes, Hynes, dropped the ball (if he ever carried it in the first place); it was criminal of him to drop the case, it was unpardonable of him not to use all his efforts to try to get this animal returned to face his accusers. BUT, this embassy cable from September 9, 1988 shows that even back then, after Israel's criminal law expanded to include sodomy, leading Israeli officials were not interested in extraditing Mondrowitz UNTIL A NEW EXTRADITION TREATY WAS SIGNED... which didn't happen until 2007.
CLICK ON DOCUMENT TO ENLARGE!
Read it and weep -- with anger! Mondrowitz's lawyer is lying, and if he gets away with it, Israel's Supreme Court will be lying too!! I'm also posting (with Michael's permission) an urgent letter he faxed to the Attorney General. The letter outlines the legal reasons why there should be NO question about sending this wanted, indicted multiple felon back to Brooklyn for the trial he deserves -- finally!
The amazing this is, with so much in the balance, NO ONE IS SPEAKING. Not the State Department (which ought to want to see its own extradition request carried out); not our Justice Department; not Israel's Ministry of Justice; and certainly not D.A. Charles Hynes!! Not a word from any of them!
Why not? Well, actually, we don't have to ask that... do we? What DO we have to do? Obviously, DO THE TALKING!! Our voices helped push the D.A. into finally asking for extradition in the fall of 2007; the publicity we generated got Mondrowitz arrested in Israel in November 2007; now we need to go public again! Let's let the people in charge know that we're watching this case, and if there is any dodge, any deal, any mealymouth about Mondrowitz's "rights," ANYTHING that keeps him from being sent back for trial -- we're going to have to know the reason why! And someone may pay for it!! No justice -- no peace!
Here's some contact information for people who ought to hear from the public: At the Brooklyn D.A.'s office, there's the sex crimes unit head:
JausR@BrooklynDA.org. You can let her know we'd appreciate hearing her voice, and her boss's, loud and clear, saying that Mondrowitz's extradition to Brooklyn is very important to the justice system and the entire community. She and Hynes have said they want to prosecute Mondrowitz: this is the right time to say that again, strongly. You might also ask her if she's sitting on the Mondrowitz file to frustrate a Freedom of Information Law request made over a year ago, in order to shed light on Hynes' recent actions in the case -- and still not responded to! You can also contact the D.A.'s Orthodox community liaison: WhiteH@BrooklynDA.org.
At the U.S. State Department, the public communication division phone: 202-647-6575. The main switchboard is 202-647-4000.
Israel's Ministry of Justice, public inquiries fax: 011-972-2-646-6357.
The message for these characters is that we're watching this case closely, we believe the law and facts clearly favor extradition and we hope their efforts toward achieving that result are completely successful.
Finally, there's Israel's High Court, Public Affairs Department. Phone is 011-972-2-675-9612 and 011-972-2-675-9613. I believe their email address is: tlunotrasham@court.gov.il and the fax number is 011-972-2-651-3191.
Bear in mind it's not proper to try to influence judges, so the message there is more or less: we are very interested in this case and its status; we know its history; we intend to continue to follow its progress. If they get enough calls, the word is sure to filter through. Remember: final briefs are being filed on TUESDAY, DECEMBER 23. A decision from the court will follow. If we wait until a dirty deal is announced -- God forbid! -- it will be too late.
THIS IS THE TIME TO MAKE OUR VOICES HEARD. Let's show that there are still responsible citizens out there, and Jews who care more for the victim than the criminal!
140 comments:
http://www.survivorsforjustice.org/Gui/Content.aspx?Page=Story20080924
A Day I Will Never Forget
Written by A Father
Dear Parents,
We have a serious problem when we don't follow up with our children's daily lives. It is our responsibility as parents to know not only what our children are learning in school, but also about their teachers and friends. But even when we think we ask all the right questions, it can still be very hard to know what is really going on.
I am a parent of a child who learned in Yeshiva Torah Temimah. When my son was in first grade he had Rabbi Kolko as his teacher. I would often ask him how he liked the yeshiva and, most important, how he liked his teacher. My son told me many times, "The rebbi likes me so much he puts me on his lap." At the time, I didn't think anything of this because I thought it was normal behavior.
However, during the course of the year, my wife and I noticed that our son was not behaving like he used to. He would get up in the middle of the night, scared of something, but we never knew what. When I learned with him on Shabbos, I noticed that he didn't seem able to concentrate, or know the material, even though he was supposed to be learning it in school. My wife and I began to worry about the dramatic change we witnessed in our son. We knew he had a problem, but didn't yet know the cause.
Then one winter night in 2005 Rabbi Kolko called our house and told us that out son had " touched another boy in the bathroom in his private place." He then said, "I will not write that on the report. Instead, I will write that he closed the lights in the bathroom."
Naturally, my wife and I were very disturbed and concerned by this. At that time our son was only 6 and we asked ourselves, "What does a child at that age know?" I remember telling my wife that I couldn't believe that what Kolko said had happened was the truth.
We tried to speak to our son the following day, but he said he didn't want to talk about it. Then I asked him again, "Is anything bothering you, because your rebbi called us up last night and told us something happened in the bathroom."
My son ran out of the room and I decided to leave it alone for the time being. I knew something was wrong but I didn't want to push it. We had many questions and no answers, but we knew one thing: we had better try to find out the answers or we would blame ourselves the rest of our lives for not making the effort to care for our son.
Time passed. We took my son out of Torah Temimah because we didn't feel he was learning there, but still things were no better. Finally, on December 25, 2006 I decided to talk to my son again. My wife is a very devoted and loving wife, and an outstanding mother, but she did not know how to start the conversation. I told her, "Three is a crowd; let me talk to him."
I took my son into my study and closed the doors. I started to play games and joke around with him. Then I told him, "I notice something is bothering you; please tell me what it is." Then I added, "Do you remember when I asked you when you were in Kolko's class, what happened in the bathroom, and you did not want to talk about it? What is bothering you? Because Mami and I worry about you every day and we see something is on your mind, let's talk about it."
I saw in my son's eyes that he was very nervous to talk to me. I asked him, ''Who loves you the most in the whole world?"
"Tati," he replied.
I told him that whatever he told me would be our secret and that I would never be angry about anything he said.
"Tati, you promise?" he asked me. "Yes," I answered.
I promised, and he trusted me. I then gave my son a big hug and a kiss and told him "Don't forget you are my naches and you can tell me what's bothering you because if anything is bothering you I want to help you." He started crying and told me all the things that Kolko did to him. I will never forget that day for the rest of my life.
As I listened to my son tell me what Kolko did to him sexually, I remember feeling like we were having an earthquake. I asked him how many times the rebbi touched him.
"A lot of times," he said.
I then asked him why he didn't run out of the classroom.
"Because the rebbi was bigger and stronger then me," he replied. "The rebbi told me if I will tell my parents he will throw me out of the yeshiva." My son then added that he saw Kolko touch other kids while they were on his lap, sitting behind his desk.
After my son told me what Kolko had done to him, I praised him and told him that he was a very brave boy, that he was a hero and a tzadik for telling me. I saw in his eyes that he felt relief, but after our conversation he asked me, " Tati, are you angry at me?"
I smiled at him with tears pouring from my eyes and told him "It was not your fault, he is a sick maniac and no one can ever blame you for what happened. You never have to be scared of that man again. What he did to you was wrong and no one has the right to touch you in your private places."
He then looked at me and asked, "Tati, why are you crying?"
"I am crying because you told me everything that happened to you and I am happy that you told me."
Now my wife and I finally understood why our son was so disturbed when he was in Kolko's class. Theanxiety and emotional stress Kolko put my son through for that year is mind-boggling. The rebbi was destroying his mind, and all the other children as well. How can children concentrate when they are under such stress? I took everything my son told me very seriously and I knew that we must act fast to save him from his nightmare.
The following Sunday I flew to Eretz Israel to speak to a few gedolim. I cried my heart out and asked for b'rachot (?) and guidance. When I returned to New York a few days later I made an appointment to see a doctor, to try to find a way to deal with this problem.
I ended up speaking to many doctors, and every one of them told me that I was very lucky that my son had told me about what he had gone through. They also told me that my son will always remember what happened to him, even when he is 25 years old. They said it won't be easy as he gets older, but with support and love he will learn how to deal with it. The best medicine is to talk about it.
Most of the doctors also told me that if my son did not get help there would be a chance that he could become a child molester himself. This even made me think that the chances are that Kolko was also abused sexually by someone when he was a child, and that no one helped him.
I believe that every parent who has a son who was in Kolko's class, regardless his age now, must try to find out if that child was sexually abused. I feel that the future of every child that had Kolko as a rebbi, instructor or counselor is in danger. Parents, not knowing if anything happened to your child should make you worried and scared. If you don't agree with me, I have pity on your children's futures.
I would never have believed that something like this could happen in a yeshiva like Torah Temimah, and I am holding the school in default of its obligations. There is evidence that the head of the school and others knew or heard that Kolko had a history of molesting boys going back many decades and nonetheless let him remain there, working with children. I am sure that some fathers complained to the Rosh Yeshiva, and I am also sure that there were children who approached someone in the administration and told them what had happened to them. The Rosh Yeshiva should have made it his priority to look into every complaint seriously and not wash them away. His failure to do this caused tremendous damage to my son and, I am sure, to hundreds of other children as well.
I ask myself: Where were our Rabbonim for all those years? I fear that the answer is that our Rabbonim didn't care. When one rabbi said, "I am a Boro park rabbi not a Flatbush rabbi; it's out of my jurisdiction" that was the wrong answer. When another rabbi said "If there was no penetration then nothing is wrong" he was saying something crazy. What Kolko did to my son and other boys was sick, and he should not have been allowed to be around children.
[NOT SURE WHAT TO DO WITH THIS: When the district attorney approached us we decided to move forward because we sew the damage kolko did to our son and I am sure he did it to many other children. Our son testified on tape and it was presented to the grand jury and kolko was arrested for his crime. The end was the DISTRICT ATTORNEY messed up the entire case and kolko got away with murder. The DA said the parents did not want their son to testify in court, it was all lies are son was ready and wanted to testify. The DA office told us it would be better this way. WHAT A TRAGEDY
I am sure there are many other children out there that went through the same experience.
THEY ARE ALL LIVING IN SILENT AND IT WILL HAUNT THEM
if they will not talk about the terrible experience, they will never grow up to be normal human beings.
People will say these are all lies. Then I will say, if you are not in it, it's easy to criticize. My wife and I suffer what kolko did to our son.
You think it's easy when you see your child is not functioning?
You think it's easy for us as parents to know are child will be affected what kolko did to him? Do you think we don't know the affect it will cause him in the future? We know it that is why we are worried and scared.]
No reason for me to comment.
2005 was 40 years after Kolko left Camp Agudah.
Anonymous said...
The Lakewood molester that was run out of town lived in Presidential Estates.
9:53 AM, December 19, 2008
Sir Vivor said...
I dont give a rats ass where the lakewood molester lived. I want a full name and where he lives now. His new neighbors have a right to know. Be they jewish or otherwise. Once a molester always a potential (re very likely) molester.
11:19 AM, December 19, 2008
What did the class clowns of Lakewood have to say about the situation, like Solomon, Forcheimer, Finkel and Russell?
Or was the issue too personal to speak about?
Name the mamzer and save the world!!
Who gives the hechsher to these two losers?
Here is the e-mail I sent to 3 people in the D.A.'s office,
Subject, A.Mondrowitz indictment # 7693/84
Dec 20, 2008 To whom this may concern, I would like to know, why the D.A. has not given an official statement regarding the extradition procedings of Avroham Mondrowitz, who is wanted here in brooklyn from jerusalem for sodomizing many young boys, one of them a very dear friend of mine, it is to my understanding that the supreme court justice in israel has had a closed door hearing for his finale appeal on his extradition. The silence from the brooklyn D.A.'s office with regard to the case right now, is almost as deafening as all those years that mondrowitz was living freely in israel while his victims were living tortured lives, and the brooklyn D.A. did nothing to help those victims get their justice they so deserve. Please for the sake of bringing some peace of mind to many people here in brooklyn, Especially the jewish & italian communities, who have been victimized by this man, it is of utmost importance for the brooklyn D.A. Chales J. Hynes, to demand once again in no uncertain terms that brooklyn wants to see Mr, Mondrowitz face his victims in a court of law here in Brooklyn. All the best, ___, of Brooklyn N.Y.
A kollel guy molesting 2,3, and 4 year olds in Lakewood. That sounds like fun!
Dear "Father of the Victim",
To my great sorrow I can empathize with your exact feelings and situation.
My son, also a first grader, was violated by a man he loved and cherished...his rebbe.
Baruch HaShem we had the siyata d'shmaya to have our son tell us what happened. He was interviewed by specialists in this field and is under the care of a wonderful therapist. She feels that due to intervention he will be alright, B''EH.
What affects him the most, however, is that the monster who did this to him and others in his class is STILL TEACHING! Not in the same school but in another school in the same community. This man is protected by the Rabbonim who choose to "look the other way" unles of course it is a matter of kashrus or mikva supervision. To them young Jewish blood/souls are cheap.
My child no longer wishes to wear "charedi" looking clothing. His deep love for learning has been somewhat diminished.
I hope that these enablers of the monster molesters among us will think hard and finally do teshuva for their gross misdeeds.
Rabbi Muskin of Young Israel of Century City in Los Angeles was livid from the pulpit, at his Shabbat sermon today and denounced the worst "chillul hashem and disgrace to our people in recent history.. and all because of greed". YU may have disassociated themselves from Madoff the minute the scandal broke but some Rabbis are openly asking "where did we go wrong?"
(How many Caredi Rabonnim came out saying anything remotely like this when the Charedi world was hit with both financial and sexual scandals in recent years?)
And as for Madoff, the death penalty is too good for him. As if it wasn't enough that we were blamed for the financial meltdown and everything else that went wrong in America, now the anti-semites actually have someone to point to. Jews like Madoff, cause all the hardship and suffering that our people have endured for years. And why do these scums do what they do? because they ned to live in 30 million dollar mansions, take expensive vacation to the Bahamas and be "respectable". Guess what, I work 10 hours a day breaking my back, trying to make a life for myself. I live in a rent controlled apartment, I don't even own a vehicle. Do I complain? no. If I had the financial knowhow to rip off investors, would i do it? NO! because I have something that too many of these rich greedy Jews don't have and that is a sense of ethics and morality.
I am sorry if I come off angry here, but I am. I am sick and tired of these scoundrels blackening the name of our people. And, Ladies and gentleman, we are at fault here! we are the ones who enable these crooks, by putting up plaques on our yeshiva buildings with their names, by giving them the best aliyas in shul, by bestowing respect upon these people- who are not deserving of respect. I venture to say that if our community adopted a policy of zero tolerance for financial scandal and bestowed upon them eternal shame, people like Madoff would not exist!
Let us all make a new years resolution to be decent and better human being and above all to spit out from our midst people who have no decency and who have caused our people countless misery with their actions.
AP study finds $1.6B went to bailed-out bank execs
Banks that are getting taxpayer bailouts awarded their top executives nearly $1.6 billion in salaries, bonuses, and other benefits last year, an Associated Press analysis reveals.
The rewards came even at banks where poor results last year foretold the economic crisis that sent them to Washington for a government rescue. Some trimmed their executive compensation due to lagging bank performance, but still forked over multimillion-dollar executive pay packages.
Benefits included cash bonuses, stock options, personal use of company jets and chauffeurs, home security, country club memberships and professional money management, the AP review of federal securities documents found.
The total amount given to nearly 600 executives would cover bailout costs for many of the 116 banks that have so far accepted tax dollars to boost their bottom lines.
Madoff and other scandals aren't a surprise when you contemplate the level of depravity that exists in the Jewish world. I agree with the Moreh D'asrah and his disgust. But his hollow diatribe won't account for much because the very people he is preaching to look at this as someone else's fault and that someone else needs to take care of it. When we stop living via surrogates and specialists of the human mind and nature and start trusting our guts, maybe things will be different. Why would you give yourself over to anyone, why would you allow another to control your actions? Because you want a convenient excuse when the bowl starts flushing and you are in the spin cycle. Wake up. The Madoffs and others exist because we assume (love that word and when it's broken up syllable-wise) that others will come to our rescue. Other don't give a damn about you. You, with Hashem's help, have to take charge. Would you go to your Rabbi, Rov, Rebbe and ask how many pieces do I tear off to wipe? If you would, check yourself in for a permanent vacation at Labotimies R Us. The moral sicknesses that we have allowed in our community and the deceptive practices that we blindly follow are, in my opinion, the result of copping out and not doing the hard work that being Jewish requires. Challenge yourselves. Use your guts and your brains will follow. Hashem is here to guide us. He didn't assign surrogates to deliver His Torah. He didn't place His Torah in the hands of Rabbis. He placed it in the hands of all Jews. Be a Jew and trust in Hashem.
YU purchasing and finances are so corrupt--M'Shmeert M'Feert is the way to do business there.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2008/12/19/2008-12-19_queens_city_councilman_hiram_monserrate_.html
Hot-tempered city councilman Hiram Monserrate was accused of slashing his girlfriend's face with broken glass Friday, leaving her with 20 stitches and a black eye.
Wearing black Adidas sweatpants, a Mets cap and a black wool jacket, the 41-year-old ex-cop from Elmhurst, Queens, looked weary as he stood before Judge Toko Sarita at his arraignment in Queens Criminal Court.
He did not speak during the brief hearing and was released on $2,500 cash bail after his lawyer, James Cullen, entered a not guilty plea.
Monserrate was charged with assault and weapons possession for allegedly attacking his girlfriend during a "boisterous argument," Queens District Attorney Scott Kessler said.
The city councilman claimed the injuries were accidental. "I brought her a glass of water, I leaned over and tripped," according to a statement read in court.
Kessler said Monserrate's girlfriend, Karla Giraldo, 29, first told hospital staff he broke a glass in his hand during a heated argument and stabbed her in the face with the shards. She later changed her story and said it was an accident.
"She doesn't want him to go to jail," Kessler said, adding that police found blood-soaked towels and broken glass in Monserrate's apartment. "She doesn't want protection."
But Sarita told Monserrate he cannot contact her and must stay at least 100 yards away.
Monserrate was elected to the state Senate last month and is scheduled to be sworn in Jan. 1. He would automatically lose his seat if convicted of a felony.
Monserrate and Giraldo spent Thursday night with Caroline Kennedy and other luminaries at the Queens Museum of Art for the Queens Democratic Party's holiday dinner.
They argued afterward, possibly because a guest at the party confused Giraldo with another of Monserrate's girlfriends, one law enforcement source said.
The fight turned violent in Monserrate's Elmhurst condo about 1 a.m., when he broke a drinking glass in his right hand and struck her - almost taking out her left eye, Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said.
Monserrate lives a few blocks from the trauma room at the city-run Elmhurst Hospital Center. But sources said he drove Giraldo 14 miles to Long Island Jewish Medical Center on the Nassau County line for treatment - and tried to get her to concoct an innocent explanation on the way.
A doctor interviewed Giraldo privately, then summoned the NYPD at 4:50 a.m., police sources said. Officers arrested Monserrate at the hospital.
The arrest meant Monserrate couldn't make his own holiday party at a substance abuse treatment center in Corona last night.
Prosecutors had been probing Monserrate's connections to a now-defunct nonprofit organization called Libre.
The Senate may not take up an ethics case for something he did before taking office. Smith ducked questions about it.
Monserrate was elected to the Council in 2001 and served on its Public Safety Committee. He attended his last Council meeting on Thursday, where he and other departing members were honored by their colleagues. He was elected to the Senate last month after he won the backing of Queens Democrats over previous Sen. John Sabini, who pleaded guilty to drunken driving and was later picked to run the state racing and wagering board.
This is the e-mail I sent to the israeli officials,
Subject,Mondrowitz v, state of Israel, docket no. 2144/2008
Shalom u'bracha, erev chag Ha'chanukah, Dec 21, 2008 To whom this may concern in the israeli justice system,
It is to my understanding that you are presiding over a very important case for the people of brooklyn NY, we are talking about a man who sodomized a large number of jewish & italian kids named avrohom mondrowitz who fled justice in the U.S. to live peacfully in jerusalem while his victims were living tortured lives in brooklyn. People of brooklyn as well as its justice system (indictment no. 7693/84) want to try this man for the crimes he committed against our little children, I would expect on this holiday of lights, for the country of israel to live up to its name of being a "light unto the nations" and give us the justice we so deserve, noone should be denied justice, especially when it is the most vulnerable amongst us, our little children.
All the best,
______
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/us_world/2008/12/19/2008-12-19_fallen_evangelical_ted_haggard_in_new_do.html
Fallen evangelical Ted Haggard in new documentary: 'I am a loser,' struggles with sexuality
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2008/12/19/2008-12-19_illinois_gov_blagojevich_pledges_to_figh.html
Illinois Gov. Blagojevich pledges to fight corruption charges, won't quit
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/us_world/2008/12/13/2008-12-13_blago_destroyer_a_terror_foe_from_brookl.html
Blago destroyer a terror foe from Brooklyn
BY JAMES GORDON MEEK
DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU
With the arrest of Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich last week, Patrick Fitzgerald has inherited G-man Eliot Ness' title of Chicago's "untouchable" crimefighter.
The Flatbush, Brooklyn-born doorman's son, who rose to be a brilliant counterterrorism prosecutor in New York City and the Chicago U.S. attorney, is virtually a lock to be the only Bush-appointed prosecutor President-elect Barack Obama retains.
Fitzgerald - who put the last Illinois governor in prison, Republican George Ryan - undertook what he called "unusual measures" by charging Blagojevich to halt an ongoing "corruption crime spree."
Dec 17, 2008 at 09:01 AM
Moshe Says: 1) What right does anybody have to call tis man a pedophile. He has never been proven guilty by anyone and has had a sterling clean record for the past twenty five years in Israel
2) Did anybody ever check who his accusers are and who is bankrolling the smear campaign against him. They would never pass a test for lunacy in a court of law. They cannot get their life together for a number of reasons and mondrowitz is not the problem even though they claim he his.
3) I have been closely following this case for the past twenty five years and all I can say is that it is not as what is being written here if anything at all.
4) All you people writing above and stating yemach shmo, etc, How many times have you sickolas done acts that every human being should be ashamed of, but you do them in private and incognito, who are you to pass judgement on Mondrowitz when you all do acts of perversion in private. Do not deny the truth. Shame on yourselves. look into a mirror and leave Mondrowitz alone.
5) Thank you Supreme Court of Israel for having some sanity and common sense in this unfortunate episode.
.................................
The above is the complete post of a deranged Gerrer Guy in Boro Park. Does anyone care to respond to this guy who sounds every bit like someone who has some real ugly bones in his closet? (I wonder what his first wife knows)
Dec. 19 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. regulators, trying to unravel the breadth of Bernard Madoff’s alleged $50 billion fraud, have found evidence of misconduct stretching back to at least the 1970s, two people familiar with the inquiry said.
Dec. 20 (Bloomberg) -- Bernard Madoff, accused in a $50 billion investment fraud, was placed under 24-hour house arrest in his $7 million New York City apartment after prosecutors warned of his “harm or flight.”
Madoff, 70, had been subject to electronic monitoring and a 7 p.m. curfew under a Dec. 17 court order. Now he is barred from leaving his Upper East Side apartment except for court appearances, and his building will be watched by security guards and video surveillance, according to a letter from prosecutors filed yesterday in federal court in Manhattan.
Why is Dayan Forscheimer on the list of "Lakewood clowns"? He is a straight guy.
Why should a silly little document cause inconvenience for Avrumel Mondrowitz?
http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=109_cong_documents&docid=f:td003.pdf
PROTOCOL BETWEEN THE GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES AND THE GOVERNMENT OF THE STATE OF ISRAEL AMENDING THE CONVENTION ON EXTRADITION, SIGNED AT JERUSALEM ON JULY 6, 2005
I know why I'm on the list of Lakewood clowns.
I'm the guy who promotes himself as the last musmach of R' Shneur Kotler and a graduate of Rutgers Social school (but I omit that I don't actually have a license to be a shrink in the illegal practice in my basement)
I come in handy when there's a molestation case that needs to get covered up. Think of me as the super David Mandel, no credentials to work in the mental health arena and ensuring that no cover up gets uncovered.
Where'd the bailout money go? Shhhh, it's a secret
Monday December 22, 7:08 am ET
By Matt Apuzzo, Associated Press Writer
Where'd the bailout money go? $350 billion later, banks won't say how they're spending it
WASHINGTON (AP) -- It's something any bank would demand to know before handing out a loan: Where's the money going?
But after receiving billions in aid from U.S. taxpayers, the nation's largest banks say they can't track exactly how they're spending the money or they simply refuse to discuss it.
"We've lent some of it. We've not lent some of it. We've not given any accounting of, 'Here's how we're doing it,'" said Thomas Kelly, a spokesman for JPMorgan Chase, which received $25 billion in emergency bailout money. "We have not disclosed that to the public. We're declining to."
The Associated Press contacted 21 banks that received at least $1 billion in government money and asked four questions: How much has been spent? What was it spent on? How much is being held in savings, and what's the plan for the rest?
None of the banks provided specific answers.
"We're not providing dollar-in, dollar-out tracking," said Barry Koling, a spokesman for Atlanta, Ga.-based SunTrust Banks Inc., which got $3.5 billion in taxpayer dollars.
Some banks said they simply didn't know where the money was going.
"We manage our capital in its aggregate," said Regions Financial Corp. spokesman Tim Deighton, who said the Birmingham, Ala.-based company is not tracking how it is spending the $3.5 billion it received as part of the financial bailout.
The answers highlight the secrecy surrounding the Troubled Assets Relief Program, which earmarked $700 billion -- about the size of the Netherlands' economy -- to help rescue the financial industry. The Treasury Department has been using the money to buy stock in U.S. banks, hoping that the sudden inflow of cash will get banks to start lending money.
There has been no accounting of how banks spend that money. Lawmakers summoned bank executives to Capitol Hill last month and implored them to lend the money -- not to hoard it or spend it on corporate bonuses, junkets or to buy other banks. But there is no process in place to make sure that's happening and there are no consequences for banks who don't comply.
CNBC
Property Developers Request Bailout: Report
Monday December 22, 9:13 am ET
Some of the biggest U.S. property developers are asking for government money in the face of $160 billion in maturing commercial mortgages next year, the Wall Street Journal reported Monday.
About $530 billion in commercial mortgages are due for refinancing over the next three years, with $160 billion due for payment next year, according to Foresight Analytics, the Journal reported.
And with credit hard to come by and cash in commercial property drying up, companies want government assistance.
Unlike home mortgages, commercial mortgages typically run for 10 years at most and have big cash payments due at maturation, the paper said.
"Right now, we believe there is insufficient systemic capacity to refinance expiring, performing commercial real-estate loans," a dozen real-estate trade groups wrote in a letter to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, according to the Journal. "For many borrowers, (credit) simply is not available."
The industry is asking to be included in the government's new $200 billion loan program intended to salvage the market for car loans, student loans and credit-card debt, the paper said.
Ex-Siemans official defends bribes
BERLIN, Dec. 21 (UPI) -- A former accountant for the German engineering giant Siemens from 2002 to 2006 says he oversaw an annual bribery budget of about $40 million to $50 million.
Accountant Reinhard Siekaczek said the money was used to curry favor with leaders around the world. Last week, the scheme cost the company $1.6 billion in the largest fine for bribery in modern corporate history, The New York Times reported Sunday.
Over the weekend, oil fell to as low as $33, but the new contract came out this morning which is trading $10 higher at about $43.
CLEVELAND, Dec. 21 (UPI) -- National City (NYSE:NCC) Bank stockholders say they are upset by the bank's probable sale to PNC Financial Services Group Inc. (NYSE:PNC) of Pittsburgh.
In papers filed with the Federal Reserve when the central bank sought public comments on the proposed acquisition of National City by PNC, 96 people weighed in, The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer reported Sunday.
Among them was Marianne Cosgrove's family, which has been saving National City stock since the 1880s.
About 15 years ago, the 96-year-old Atlanta woman inherited 3,620 shares from her sister and she promised not to sell them. She reportedly watched the stock's value go from more than $100,000 to about $6,300.
"This has really hurt me financially," Cosgrove said. "My husband is dead, and I don't have that much income, and things have gotten so expensive."
The newspaper said shareholders of both banks are likely to sign off on the deal Tuesday. PNC is buying National City for $5.6 billion, or $2.23 a share for a bank that was worth 15 times as much last year.
"I could be wrong, of course, but National City Bank seemed to be in good enough shape to have survived if PNC hadn't come along like greedy old Mr. Potter in 'It's a Wonderful Life' and squashed its little competitor," wrote Priscilla Hefner of Cleveland.
Imprisoned former Ill. Gov. George Ryan is of course interested in a Bush pardon.
Ray LaHood, the Arab who Obama nominated as Transportation secretary, is acting as go between but the Blagojevitch scandal will probably nip any hopes in the bud.
From the time that we entered into the times of Moshiach, when "Pnai Hador K'Pnai Hakelev", when the leaders of Klal Yisroel became afraid and crippled to lead out of fear for their bottom lines, and therefore look back at the people to see the reactions prior to taking a stand, these tragedies written on this site have been happening. Abuse and molestation are rampant because the perpetrators know that the leaders are not astute enough, nor have the backbone to stand up to immorality as long as you look the way the leaders expect all is good. When molesters in the yeshivish velt masquerade in their black hats, frocks, put on a beard, and wiggle their thumb with a gutte sevarah they are respected and granted immunity for behaviors, actions, and criminal behaviors done outside the bais medrash. It's very nice that some yeshivas allow the community members to learn there at night, but the yeshiva has to be responsible for their behaviors and supervise them. It's bad enough bochrim molesting others, but it is criminal to allow this from an outsider.
What happens when the mask is lifted and the rosh yeshiva, dayanim, or rabbanim are told by the victims what was done to them by the town tzaddik? They call them liars, they threaten their safety, they put them into chairem, or politely tell them they are wicked people with no ne'emanus. When the rabbonim are pressured, they say, "We can't do anything to the perpetrator because it will destroy his family". What about the victims, and the lives they had ruined, the potential snuffed out before it even got going, lives of instability, personal and marital problems they experience that doesn't count in their eyes.
For fifteen years Agudah has been meeting about the "at-risk" crisis. Yet not once did it ever occur to them that maybe their rabbonim, roshei yeshiva, and dayanim's actins and behaviors towards victims IS the cause of the problem. It's time for Agudah's rabbinic and general leadership to admit the root cause of the problem. Worse than the molestation and abuse by the dirty animals who do their thing ,is the scorn and contempt shown to them by the community leaders. Victimizing the victim, is the "atom bomb" of molestation that causes kids to go off from. The few real leaders involved in this issue, and try to wake up the rabbinic leadership are marginalized as fringe fanatice in order to avoid confronting their worst fears.
Molesting monsters are still running around our community shuls, yeshivas and mikvahs doing what they do best, and our rabbonim are doing what they do best, covering for them. Is their hope for Yiddishkeit?
A regular person says "Yes". A victim who sees the truth says, "NO".
We hope that Hashem will make another Chanukah miracle and deliver the mighty molesters into the hands of the weak victims. Deliver the Rabbim = rabbonim's mindset into the hands the few good people who care to stand against this plague. He should deliver the Temaim who prey on victims using holy ways, dressing in holy ways, and doing immoral acts in holy places like shul, yeshivas and mikvaos, into the hands of the Tehorim the innocent victims who were defenseless prey for their perversions. Deliver the wicked, disgusting people into the hands of the righteous victims who did nothing wrong.
Then we will see "Ohr Chadash Al Tzion Ta'Ir", because we have taken a stand against perversion, and made our nation a light unto the nations.
A must read
http://www.cicentre.com/articles/gw_america_last_man_standing.html
America as the Last Man Standing
http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/nys/pressreleases/September08/mayoetalarrestindictmentpr.pdf
ISRAEL-BASED DEFENDANTS INDICTED AND ARRESTED IN LOTTERY TELEMARKETING FRAUD TARGETING U.S. CITIZENS
ALLEGED SCHEME OBTAINED APPROXIMATELY $2 MILLION FROM ELDERLY VICTIMS
What is keeping Haaretz magazine from interviewing mayer zilbershteyn from yerushalayim so everyone can see the official gerrer position on the mondrowitz fiasco. They are guiltier than you can imagine
I agree with those arguing with SHmarya over at Commentary's blog.
The judge is seemingly not correct to invoke Israel's law of return in this case and Shmarya is wrong to agree with him.
The fugitives that have escaped justice, fled to Israel BEFORE they were indicted in the United States. RUbashkin is already under indictment.
And by the same token, the judge's argument would have to apply to countries like France who also do not extradite under various circumstances.
What the judge should have argued is that Rubashkin has the means and contacts around the world to escape under an assumed identity. That's the same reason why Bernie Madoff should also be denied bail.
Shmarya posted on Commentary Magazine's blog that fugitive Rubashkin manager Zev Levi is orthodox.
Is that true or is Shmarya just hoping in vain?
It was also hilarious to watch SHmarya berate the journalist there for not linking to the court documents. If those documents are available at the State website, then it was just a shameless self-promoting plug to link to his own blog.
http://documents.scribd.com/docs/20ua2knpypt67cobial7.pdf
http://documents.scribd.com/docs/1u1ebgunczgtqa0q5p6j.pdf
SHmarya said that ex-Satmar woman is guilty of bad etiquette for promoting herself on Failed Messiah with a link.
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/shubow/47241
How is Shmarya behaving any differently? He gives himself a plug when the Rubashkin court documents are on the original source sites.
This address on 14th Ave (not St) makes him a neighbor of Aaron Rubashkin.
http://documents.scribd.com/docs/20ua2knpypt67cobial7.pdf
After Sholom was arrested at his home in Postville on November 14, 2008, the government sought to detain him, claiming that he was both a risk of flight and a danger to the community. Both the government and the Defendant made proffers and tendered the Court exhibits. The following morning. Defendant’s counsel tendered to the Court by email as a supplement to Exhibit 4A, without objection by the government, the written
pledge (with appraisal attached) as additional surety property owned by Jack Lefkowitz at 5119 14th Street, Brooklyn, New York having claimed value in excess of $4,000,000.00.
http://thefundingdepot.com/
A Jack Lefkowitz is a mortgage lender.
And he may be the guy by the same name who is a shady real estate developer:
http://www.oag.state.ny.us/media_center/2001/jan/jan18a_01.html
Attorney General Spitzer announced today that an $8 million lawsuit has been filed against the sponsors of a loft condominium building in Tribeca, alleging that its developers failed to disclose major construction defects and deficiencies in the building to prospective buyers. The lawsuit seeks to permanently bar the sponsors from the co-op and condo business and to recover $8 million to repair the building. The defendants in the lawsuit are the sponsors, 27 North Moore Associates, LLC, the principals of which are Jack Lefkowitz, Abraham Berkowitz and Joseph Pell Lombardi.
Some of the defects include wood floors inside residences that have warped and buckled; a wall installed in the courtyard was supposed to be brick and is actually a quarter inch veneer that looks like brick; a skim coat of paint promised in the offering plan was not applied; facades need pointing; the stucco on the exterior walls needs repair; the roof requires installation of a new waterproof membrane; a marble floor for the lobby promised in the offering plan was not installed; and various repairs are needed in the heating, ventilation and air conditioning system, the plumbing and the fire safety system.
http://www.nydailynews.com/archives/news/1999/08/20/1999-08-20_biz_tenants__owner_a_menace_.html
Friday, August 20th 1999, 2:11AM
The new owner of a century-old office building in lower Manhattan has turned it into a dangerous, filthy tower of horrors to harass the occupants into moving out, tenants charged yesterday.
City fire and building inspectors have issued a slew of violations since the owner, Nassau Equities LLC, bought the 21-story tower at 150 Nassau St. about six weeks ago. The firm plans to convert the ornate stone tower into a luxury apartment building.
The city briefly shut down the building after chunks of marble dropped off the facade near the front door, slashing cuts into a tenant's leg.
The owner has shut off all but one of the four passenger elevators, stopped putting toilet paper and towels in the rest rooms and ripped out hundreds of ceiling panels, leaving electrical wires dangling in most hallways.
Locks on the bathroom doors have been disabled.
"I don't know how they can get away with this," said attorney Joan Charles as she stepped across the garbage and debris outside her 13th-floor office. "Every day it gets worse."
Nassau Equities lawyer Meryl Wenig denied the firm had done anything wrong. She said she had "terminated" 45 leases and had only "a few tenants" with valid leases.
"I have many tenants who haven't paid rent in quite some time," she said.
Tenant Ira Gillman, owner of a process server company, said he was mugged last week in his ninth-floor office. His bruised face was still bandaged yesterday. Bloodstains were visible on the carpet. He blamed Nassau Equities for bouncing the security guard stationed in the lobby.
"There's no security left in this building," he said. "It's a joke."
Wenig said she was unaware of any fire- and building-code citations and knew nothing about cuts in security or cleaning staff. She said she did not know why locks to the bathroom doors were disabled, but defended the debris littering the building.
"You can't do major gut renovations with people in place," she said.
She called the marble collapse from the facade a "minor" incident.
"In construction, there are times when people get hurt," she said.
Erick Derkatsch, who runs a translation service on the 10th floor, has tried to organize tenants to sue the landlord. He hired a private security firm to guard his office after a window on his front door was broken into.
"This is a matter of personal protection at this point," he said.
"They're trying to make it as miserable as possible," said Bruce Anglin, owner of Allboro Process Servers on the 13th floor.
The code violations include blocking the front door with construction debris and failure to maintain the building's exterior. Buildings and Fire department inspectors tried to meet yesterday with Jack Lefkowitz, a principal in Nassau Equities, but he didn't show up, they said.
"We'll use the fire marshals to track him down if we have to," said Assistant Fire Chief Harold Meyers.
http://documents.scribd.com/docs/1u1ebgunczgtqa0q5p6j.pdf
Check out this hypocrisy.
Rubashkin and his supporters led by Avi Shafran, Pinchos Lipschutz, Larry Gordon & Yair Hoffman, have been complaining that even the mere mention of charges against Rubashkin constitute "lashon harah".
So what does Rubashkin turn around and do? He pays his lawyers to draft this pricey piece of research about dozens of felons considered for extradition to the US from Israel.
So for a few Rubashkins anything about their crimes is "lashon harah" but for dozens of others not?
There are opinions in halacha that anything reported in newspapers is no longer lashon harah but Rubashkin and his supporters decide to be more "strict" when it suits them.
http://volokh.com/files/rubashkin1.pdf
Rubashkin supporters have been arguing that Federal agents are nuts for worrying about $1 bills in Shalom's posession.
According to this, they found both the small bills inside pushkos PLUS larger denomination$ in a wearable travel pouch.
Why can't we ever get the whole story from the pro-Rubashkin spinmeisters?
http://www.thejewishweek.com/viewArticle/c237_a14346/Special_Sections/Directions.html
Breaking The Silence
by Hella Winston
Special To The Jewish Week
At this time last year, Dr. Asher Lipner had no idea he was on a course to become a grass-roots community organizer, particularly around such a delicate issue: child sexual abuse in the Orthodox community. But having successfully organized a conference attended by close to 50 survivors of abuse, clinicians, advocates and rabbis in Brooklyn in September, that, as well as a compassionate and outspoken advocate for victims of abuse throughout the Orthodox world, is exactly what he has become.
Lipner, who is 42 and lives in Flatbush, has a Ph.D. in psychology and works in the Orthodox community as a therapist specializing in issues related to sexual abuse. He is a teddy bear of a man, with dark hair and a salt-and-pepper beard, and over coffee at a café in his neighborhood he spoke thoughtfully about an issue that he has become passionate about.
Lipner claims that the idea for the conference came out of a growing sense of frustration among colleagues and friends who had been dealing with the issue largely in isolation, and longed to find a way to work with others to confront what they saw as a communal problem. Lipner drew on his extensive network of clinicians, advocates, survivors and rabbis to create a list of invitees, which ultimately grew into the triple digits.
The conference, which was held on Sept. 21, drew men and women from, according to Lipner, “Yeshivish black-hat backgrounds, Modern Orthodox, Satmar Chasidim and Lubavitch/Chabad, some religious, others no longer so.” Featured speakers included Rabbi Yosef Blau, the mashgiach ruchni (spiritual adviser) of Yeshiva University, Brooklyn Assemblyman Dov Hikind and Elliot Pasik, the president and a founder of the Jewish Board of Advocates for Children. Sessions focused on topics ranging from “Enlightening Our Leaders” and “Community Education” to “Government at Work Protecting Kids” and “Survivor Support.” Attendees came from as far away as Baltimore, Florida and Los Angeles.
Despite the level of interest and participation, the meeting was not publicized beyond the list of invitees out of concern for the privacy — and even safety — of the participants.
“It actually felt a bit like a meeting of Soviet Refuseniks discussing survival under the nose of the KGB,” Lipner said. “It’s a shame that our community still has this need to protect its own image more than it’s ready to protect its children,” he added, noting that significant progress has been made.
“Dov Hikind has been publicizing this problem on his radio show, the Jewish Board of Advocates has successfully lobbied for legislation to protect yeshiva students, and now [the haredi umbrella group] Agudath Israel has publicly agreed to back up their position on mandated finger printing and background checks.”
While Lipner says he is not yet sure what the fruits of the meeting will ultimately be — a handbook for parents, teachers and survivors is already in the works — he says the reaction of one of the survivors in attendance convinced him that the gathering alone was worthwhile.
“An adult survivor who has been especially outspoken was supposed to moderate one session of the meeting,” Lipner said. “However, in the middle, he began to walk out. I followed to see if he was all right, and he said that the subject matter was overwhelming him emotionally. ‘You have spoken to hundreds of rabbis and leaders about your personal story. Your story has been written about and publicized. You are a courageous fighter for change. And my meeting has overwhelmed you?’” Lipner asked the young man.
“His answer made my day: ‘Asher, he said, this is the first time I see that people care.’”
While Lipner’s work as a therapist has given him tremendous insight into the issues confronting those who have been sexually abused — not to mention the particular struggles of Orthodox abuse survivors — he also has a more personal connection to the topic.
As a teenager, Lipner attended an East Coast yeshiva, where, he claims, he had “a relationship with a rabbi who acted inappropriately and made sexual advances.” While the experience proved traumatic for the “young and naïve” Lipner, he was able to tell his mother about it, and she promptly intervened, causing the rabbi to back off. However, another student, a friend of Lipner’s, wasn’t as lucky.
After enduring similar treatment at the hands of the same rabbi, this young man went to the administration, which, without conducting an investigation, promptly asked the boy to leave the school. It was only after some “political maneuvering” that the student was allowed to remain at the school, under the condition that he keep quiet about the incident.
To this day, Lipner says he feels “guilty that I did not come forward and stand up for the injustice and for the danger that this rabbi presented to others. My fear and shame, so common to victims of abuse, prevented me from coming to the help of another innocent victim.”
Lipner, it seems, is no longer content to remain silent. Though he acknowledges that speaking out can have a price, he is committed to this issue and will continue to work on it.
“Some people feel ... if you publicly name a rabbi as a molester, you are ‘anti-rabbis,’ or if you publicly criticize a yeshiva that acts irresponsibly you are ‘attacking yeshivas,’ or if you say the Orthodox community has a problem, just like everybody else, then you are ‘anti-Orthodox.’ Several people who care about me warned me that I would not be able to advance as a professional in the Orthodox mental health field, and that my shidduch [marriage] potential would be hurt.”
Despite these dire warnings, and a few raised eyebrows, Lipner claims nothing he has done has hurt him in his “career nor in my personal life.” In fact, he feels that things are beginning to change in the Orthodox world, and that the “fear so many have of speaking up is based on a stigma that is illogical and disappearing with education and awareness” — both things he hopes to continue to provide.
“The sex abuse problem can only be cracked with an interdisciplinary approach, and that is exactly the type of conference Asher organized,” says Pasik of the Jewish Board of Advocates For Children. “With passion and a sense of purpose, he brought to the table representatives from law, government, criminal justice, medicine, psychology, and rabbis. It was a huge stepping stone towards concrete solutions, including much overdue legislation that will finally rid our yeshivas and all nonpublic schools of people who would do harm to our kids.”
Ultimately, Lipner believes, education and awareness are about healing.
“I see this kind of healing beginning to take place in therapy rooms where families torn apart by sexual abuse courageously learn to love each other in healthy ways,” he says. “I see it in the coming forward of hundreds of victims to Dov’s task force to tell their stories, and in the letter sent out by a yeshiva principal in New Jersey to parents ... encouraging them, with the backing of a reputable posek halacha [decisor of Jewish law], to cooperate with a police investigation of [a coach accused of] sexual abuse. I see healing in the public statements of Agudath Israel expressing empathy and understanding for bloggers who have been more than critical of what they perceive as Aguda’s lack of leadership on this issue.
“This olive branch is, I believe, a harbinger of reconciliation between those who have been hurt in our community and the leaders who represent the community.”
Does anyone know what's going on with Leiby Puretz in Staten Island?
After his former shick yingle Eckstein tried to advertise him on Yeshiva World as the "Jewish Donald Trump", the papers say he can't sell most of his condo units and that there's a problem with shoddy construction.
Telshe-Chicago Mechina Bochurim said...
Either put up or shut up!! Don't go on and on about how bad the rabbonim are regarding molestation when you know information about specific people who pose a danger to the Chicago community. How do you sleep at night knowing that dangerous people are out there and you are doing nothing to protect the community from them?
Name names or keep your comments to yourself.
Hint: Click in map to explore connections
http://news.muckety.com/2008/12/22/elite-new-york-synagogue-shaken-by-madoff-scam/8841
Elite New York synagogue shaken by Madoff scam
By Laurie Bennett
December 22, 2008 at 10:23am
Herman Wouk, a member, once described New York’s Fifth Avenue Synagogue as a “Who’s Who of World Jewry.”
In recent days, the congregation has become a Who’s Who of Bernard Madoff victims
Among the members who placed their money in Madoff’s hands - knowingly or unknowingly - are Nazi hunter Elie Wiesel, Jesselson Capital President Michael G. Jesselson and billionaire investor Ira Leon Rennert, chairman of the synagogue.
Leading the way was synagogue president J. Ezra Merkin, whose investment companies essentially handed over client funds for management by Madoff. Merkin announced Friday that he would liquidate one of those funds, Gabriel Capital, because of the losses.
Like Madoff, the only person charged in alleged Ponzi scheme, Merkin is incredibly well connected. He chairs GMAC Financial Services and sits on the boards of Carnegie Hall, UJA-Federation of New York and the Levy Economics Institute at Bard College. He resigned earlier this month as a trustee of Yeshiva University, which lost millions with Madoff.
A fellow board member at the Levy institute is Martin L. Leibowitz, a managing director of Morgan Stanley and one of the people overseeing the Harvard University endowment. Although several educational institutions invested with Madoff or Merkin (including Yeshiva and Tufts), there’s no indication that Harvard did so.
However, as Gary Tobin, president of the Institute for Jewish & Community Research, told Reuters, “It didn’t matter that Madoff didn’t have Harvard University or Duke University as clients. He had everyone else.”
The Madoff network spanned the globe. Clients included foreign banks, the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority and the International Olympic Committee.
Yet like any good Ponzi scheme, it was a strategy that worked because of the six-degrees-of-separation concept. For better or worse, it’s all about who you know.
There's something fishy about Shmully Hecht from New Haven offering the court $10 million worth of property to get Sholom Rubashkin out on bail.
He himself admits that that his equity stake does not cover at least 3 quarters of that (that are highly leveraged with loans from Wells Fargo) but I find the remaining $2.5 million to also be suspicious.
The New Haven Advocate reported once that his companies "Saturn" is financially backed by Raymond Weil watch importer Benny Shabtai (Shabtai is Hebrew for Saturn) and Gutnick from AUstralia though they didn't realize that Hecht is Diamond Joe's nephew.
They also wrote that Hecht, as founder of the Chai Society at Yale U, he convinced the Yale intelligentsia to give him money to invest in tech start ups.
I hope it doesn't turn out to be another ponzi scheme.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chai_Society
Hecht sure has an odd roster of characters backing his society.
The dangerously anti-orthodox Noah Feldman, Newark Mayor Cory Booker, Henry "the Fonz" Winkler & Jerry Springer.
This is how the NY Times describes the society & Hecht's co-founder Ben Karp.
Maybe Shmarya will get to like Hecht after all!
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0DE4DA1F3EF931A25751C0A9669C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all
Ben Karp, the founder and director of the Chai Society, an ''intellectual salon'' for blacks and Jews at Yale, acknowledged a gap between his ideal, ''a world in which there are no boxes,'' and his decision to identify himself as exclusively black on the census. Mr. Karp, whose father is white and Jewish and whose mother is black, said, ''It's a contradiction we're forced to live with.''
Mr. Karp noted that in America, the label ''black'' on people who are only partly so tends to incorporate other races in their lineage, including white and Native American, while ''white'' means the absence of other races. Socially, he said, ''black Americans get identified with their poorest members -- success is seen as the exception.''
He looked up, leaned forward and said, ''I am also the black experience.''
http://newhavenindependent.org/archives/2008/04/the_rabbi_and_t.php
Hecht also showed up in court as a character witness for criminals who he knew full well were Italian mafia thugs breaking the law.
I think Asher Lipner was in Ner Yisroel for high school.
Who was the perp? Eisemann?
http://bulk.resource.org/courts.gov/c/F3/255/255.F3d.1163.00-10077.html
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, PLAINTIFF-APPELLEE,
v.
DROR SAR-AVI, DEFENDANT
It is fortuitous that "Yiddish is quickly supplanting Latin as the spice in American legal argot;"1 otherwise we might be bereft of a satisfactory description of defendant's argument in this case. Fortunately, "chutzpah" is available, because our use of it is quite inevitable. But that is getting ahead of our story.
The whole magillah began in 1986, when Sar-Avi apparently took the wrong message from Einstein's advice that "you cannot beat a roulette table unless you steal money from it." In order to secure gambling credit from Las Vegas, Tahoe and Atlantic City casinos, Sar-Avi temporarily opened several bank accounts under assumed names to create the illusion of financial solvency. He then took full advantage of what Nick "the Greek" Dandalos described as the opportunity the house provides players to beat themselves. In short, Sar-Avi did not meet with success at the tables, proving the old adage: "Depend on the rabbit's foot if you will, but remember that it didn't work for the rabbit."
Having lost his borrowed chips, Sar-Avi withdrew his money from the fraudulent bank accounts, causing over $58,000 in markers sent by Caesar's Palace and Bally's to be returned by the banks for insufficient funds. Perhaps rightly perceiving that the casinos would not take kindly to his charade, Sar-Avi took the money and ran to Israel, making full use of his dual American-Israeli citizenship.
Sar-Avi remained abroad for several years, but was eventually compelled by court order to return to the United States so that he could be deposed in a civil lawsuit he had previously filed against an insurance company. He was greeted with a federal grand jury indictment charging him with four counts of wire fraud, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1343.
The government urged that Sar-Avi be detained without bond pending trial because of his prior peripatetic propensities and a tendency to be less than forthright about the necessity for his travel. As an example, the government cited civil pleadings in which Sar-Avi had alleged, among other apocrypha, that he could not leave Israel because of his quite healthy mother's supposedly terminal illness. Despite Sar-Avi's contrary testimony and his repeated sworn assurances that he would remain in the United States for trial, the magistrate judge ordered Sar-Avi detained without bond.
Sar-Avi moved for reconsideration. After hearing testimony of witnesses who agreed to house Sar-Avi, the magistrate judge relented and released Sar-Avi on a $100,000 bond, of which $10,000 in cash was deposited with the court, with Sar-Avi himself as surety. Sar-Avi then pled guilty to wire fraud.
Rather than appear for sentencing as promised, Sar-Avi elected to flee again to Israel. The district court subsequently granted the government's motion to forfeit Sar-Avi's bond, which left the government with $10,000 in hand and a $90,000 marker.
Although out of sight, Sar-Avi was not out of the government's mind. After six years of negotiations and other attempts by the United States to secure his presence in a federal courtroom, Sar-Avi agreed to return from Israel and submit to United States jurisdiction. He was taken into custody in late 1998. Subsequently, Sar-Avi signed a new plea agreement that dealt with both the original wire-fraud charge as well as the charge of failure to appear. This plea agreement stipulated, inter alia, that Sar-Avi would pay the remaining $90,000 owing due to his bond forfeiture at or before his sentencing hearing. The district court accepted the terms of the plea agreement, and at the sentencing hearing, Sar-Avi paid the $90,000 remaining on his bond.
In the guilty plea, Sar-Avi waived his right to appeal "any . . . aspect of his conviction or sentence." During the plea colloquy, Sar-Avi confirmed his agreement to waive appeal. Despite these attestations, a year later Sar-Avi moved the district court to remit his bond forfeiture, a request that court summarily denied. Sar-Avi appeals, contending that the district court abused its discretion by declining to give him back the money he agreed to forfeit.
After negotiating two plea agreements with Sar-Avi and pursuing him for a decade, the government naturally thinks that the idea that Sar-Avi has preserved any rights to challenge his bond forfeiture is pure mishegas. For his part, Sar-Avi concedes that he forfeited the bond when he fled the United States; that he unconditionally agreed to pay immediately the forfeited amount as part of his plea bargain; and that he agreed to waive his right to appeal the criminal judgment. He simply argues that he never promised not to ask the district court for the money back.
Chutzpuh is not an infrequent visitor in court and may, in fact, have its place in the development of the law. Indeed, as one judge observed, "[l]egal chutzpah is not always undesirable, and without it our system of jurisprudence would suffer."
Sar-Avi claims that his departure was not "willful" because he had a "near fatal" heart attack after the entry of his plea and could neither receive nor afford proper medical care in the United States. Thus, he alleges that he had no choice but to flee to Israel to obtain medical treatment for his life-threatening affliction. On its face, that contention might startle the many fine cardiologists in the greater Los Angeles area, where his first plea was entered. It would also doubtless surprise the physician who actually treated Sar-Avi in the United States -- without apparent regard to his financial means -- and who concluded that Sar-Avi had suffered stress-related chest pain, but not a heart attack. Indeed, there is no proof that Sar-Avi was ever refused health care in America for financial or any other reason.
Even if Sar-Avi had a colorable factual argument, physical danger does not automatically justify setting aside a forfeiture.
http://www.postcp.com/team.html
My shver is Ira Rennert. I don't know why these yenta reporters are trying to find every putz who lost money with Madoff & Merkin.
http://www.postcp.com/portfolio.html
The following is a list of current and former portfolio companies of Post Capital
Amigo Insurance Holding Corporation
Network of retail insurance agencies which sell property and casualty insurance, specializing in non-standard private passenger automobile insurance.
Agent Media Corporation
Provider of database, publishing and marketing solutions for Life, Health and Annuity segments of the insurance industry.
American Disposal Services
Operator of solid waste landfills and hauling companies.
Abra
Operator and franchisor of vehicle repair centers.
United Road Service
Provider of motor vehicle and equipment transportation and logistics services.
StatementOne
Aggregator of securities transaction data for financial community.
Someone asked about G&G Poultry whose chassidishe owners are facing 255 years in jail.
G&G has actually been out of business for some time now.
There is a different poultry company in Birdsboro, PA now called Mehadrin which has nothing to do with them.
This is a coincidence but there is also a chain of retail stores called G&G with a connection to kosher poultry.
A director, Lenard Tessler is also Managing Director of Cerberus under Ezra Merkin. Tessler served as Chairman of the Board
of Empire Poultry from 1994 to 1997, after serving as its President and CEO from 1992 to 1994.
Another director, Craig Cogut, is founding principal of Pegasus Capital which owns a kosher chicken company in shutfus with Hain Celestial. Cogut was a senior principal of Apollo Advisors.
Apollo was co-founded by Leon Black. Leon Black's father Eli, or Eliyohu Menashe Blachowitz, was a Poilisher Yid who started off as a rov in Woodmere before going into gesheft and starting United Brands, now known as Chiquita Banana.
Not every Puretz employee is a misfit but it's true that more than one of them is nuts.
I think he looks at it that the nebich cases and their mishpochos need parnossa.
I know that he keeps these types on the payroll after he's sovel hezek from them.
Reb UOJ,
With all due respect, the other picture of you was way, way better! Seriously, what happened?
Thanks Anon 5:17,
Too many inappropriate e-mails. Let's see........
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Oil dropped nearly 6 percent to below $40 a barrel on Monday on signs the global economic malaise was slowing fuel demand further.
Apparent oil consumption in China fell by 3.2 percent in November from a year ago, according to Reuters calculations, while crude imports into the world's No. 2 energy consumer dropped to the lowest level this year.
U.S. crude for February delivery settled down $2.45 at $39.91 a barrel. The January contract touched $32.40 on Friday before expiring, the lowest since February 2004, weighed down by rising stock levels at the Cushing, Oklahoma, delivery point for the New York Mercantile Exchange contract.
Judge again denies bail to Agriprocessors' ex-leader
By TONY LEYS • tleys@dmreg.com • December 22, 2008
Former Agriprocessors leader Sholom Rubashkin will remain in jail, despite allegations that a judge’s refusal to grant bail amounts to discrimination against him because he is Jewish.
Rubashkin, the former top executive at the Postville meatpacking plant, has been held since Nov. 14. He faces federal charges of bank fraud and conspiracy to hire undocumented workers at the plant, the site of an immigration raid in May.
Prosecutors have successfully argued against bail in the case, saying they fear Rubashkin would flee the country. Their arguments have included references to Israel's "Law of Return," which allows Jews from around the world to become Israeli citizens.
Defense lawyers contend the government claim amounts to discrimination against all Jews, and the controversy has brought national attention in the Jewish press and the Wall Street Journal.
Magistrate Judge Jon Scoles ruled Monday that Rubashkin must remain jailed. He wrote that the “Law of Return” issue is a minor part of the reason. “Defendant attaches too much significance to that single reference,” the judge wrote.
Scoles noted that law officers who arrested Rubashkin found a travel bag containing thousands of dollars in cash, his birth certificate and his children’s passports. That discovery strengthened their suspicions that he might have been preparing to flee, Scoles wrote. He added that at least one other former Agriprocessors manager is believed to have fled to Israel through Canada.
Scoles was unswayed by Rubashkin’s offer to hire a private security company to keep him under house arrest. He said that offer did not represent “new information,” which would lead to a new bail hearing.
Defense lawyers said their client would agree to numerous safeguards, including an electronic tracking bracelet and millions of dollars in bond money. They also said Israel has a strong extradition treaty with the United States.
Rubashkin’s lawyers had hoped to win his release by Hanukkah, which began Sunday night. They said they would appeal Scoles’ ruling.
What a small world.
Ezra Merkin lives in Leon Black's building.
Eli Blachowitz did not start United Brands / Chiquita. He bought it 100 years after it was founded. After the Feds found out he was bribing banana exporters, he jumped off the 44th floor of the Pan Am / Met Life building. When the bribes were revealed, it led to the overthrow of the Honduran government and the company's rail lines to be seized and nationalized.
Chiquita was then bought by former Cinci Reds owner Carl Lindner who continued the illegal activity and allowed cocaine smuggling.
Chiquita executives were actually giving payments to terrorist groups which led US Justice to come after them.
NATION: Child named after Hitler is refused cake request
Associated Press • December 17, 2008
EASTON, Pa. — Three-year-old Adolf Hitler Campbell is cute, cuddly and, for now, blissfully unaware of the shock value conveyed by his first and middle names. That may be changing, though.
The youngster was at the center of a recent dispute between his parents and a local supermarket that refused to spell out his name on a cake for his birthday party last weekend. A story in a local newspaper prompted an outpouring of angry online responses directed at Heath Campbell, 35, and his wife Deborah, 25.
"I think people need to take their heads out of the cloud they've been in and start focusing on the future and not on the past," Heath Campbell said Tuesday in an interview conducted on the other side of the Delaware River from where the family lives in Hunterdon County, N.J.
"There's a new president and he says it's time for a change; well, then it's time for a change," he continued. "They need to accept a name. A name's a name. The kid isn't going to grow up and do what (Hitler) did."
Deborah Campbell said she phoned in her order last week to the ShopRite in Greenwich, just east of downtown Phillipsburg on the western edge of New Jersey. When she told the bakery department she wanted her son's name spelled out, she was told to talk to a supervisor, who denied the request.
Karen Meleta, a spokeswoman for ShopRite, said the Campbells had similar requests denied at the same store the last two years and said Heath Campbell previously had asked for a swastika to be included in the decoration.
"We reserve the right not to print anything on the cake that we deem to be inappropriate," Meleta said. "We considered this inappropriate."
The Campbells ultimately got their cake inscribed at a Wal-Mart in Pennsylvania, Deborah Campbell said. About 12 people attended the birthday party on Sunday, including several children who were of mixed race, according to Heath Campbell.
"If we're so racist, then why would I have them come into my home?" he asked.
The Campbells' other two children also have unusual names: JoyceLynn Aryan Nation Campbell turns 2 in a few months and Honszlynn Hinler Jeannie Campbell will be 1 in April.
Heath Campbell said he named his son after Adolf Hitler because he liked the name and because "no one else in the world would have that name." He sounded surprised by all the controversy the dispute had generated.
Campbell said his ancestors are German and that he has lived his entire life in Hunterdon County. On Tuesday he wore a pair of black boots he said were worn by a German soldier during World War II.
He said he was raised not to avoid people of other races but not to mix with them socially or romantically either. But he said he would try to raise his children differently.
"Say he grows up and hangs out with black people. That's fine, I don't really care," he said. "That's his choice."
How are the Neubergers going to deny the abuse in Ner Yishmoel now?
Asher Lipner is a normal guy who later learned in Lakewood and is now a doctor. He's not some nebichel that we can invoke the Margo doctrine on and say he's crazy.
It's disgusting but the 1995 movie Hudsucker Proxy made fun of the Eli Black suicide.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bananagate
The SEC called the Eli Black suicide and the bribery "BananaGate".
Someone tried to convince the SEC to cover it up. I promise it wasn't me! But I heard Margulies was the one who told them to hide the money in Swiss bank accounts.
When I was growing up, there was a clone of Madoff's persona in the neighborhood, actually a few of them.
But this one guy, in bekishe and homburg did exactly the same Madoff Ponzi with naive immigrants who "invested" in his chain of nursing homes by way of purchasing "beds".
One day the guy blew his own brains out sitting at his desk with his guts splattered all over the tehillim in front of him.
He "sold" thousands of beds in nursing homes he never owned.
A rosh yeshiva once gave a shmooz about the disgraced Congressman who stunned the world by suddenly pulling a gun out during a live TV interview and blowing his brains out.
Hot der rosh yeshiva gezogt az nor a grubba goy vos hot nisht a siba far lebben yetzt ohn zein kovod vet ton a za maayseh.
This krumma rosh yeshiva later swindled a bunch of creditors out of money & skipped the country.
What do you guys have against Bernie Madoff?
I heard he's writing out IOUs for anyone that asks.
Ezra Merkin liquidated Gabriel Capital this past erev Shabbos but I don't think we'll hear the end of him.
When Amaranth in Greenwich CT melted down because of risky energy options, the guys responsible opened new funds that are successful and have paid back all the money.
http://www.immigrantjustice.org/index.php?option=com_docman&task=doc_download&gid=464
Affidavits from Postville ICE Raid Tell of Abuse
I, MARVIN DANILO PEREZ‐GOMEZ, Bureau of Prisons # 10673‐029, of 27 years of age, a native of Chimaltenango, Guatemala, attest to the following facts:
I worked 3 years in Agriprocessors, in the area for deveining kosher beef. The rabbis who inspected the meat, if they found any little vein, they would throw the piece of meat to your face. They would not pay us for all the “overtime.” On the contrary, they would deduct the laundering of the work clothes, the gloves, and the other equipment, the doctor’s visit if we got sick or injured, and even the Tylenol or any other medication. You’d have to work even if you are sick or have a fever. They would make you sign a paper that the company was not responsible for any accident or injury, and that the medical expenses were on us.
The raid started at 10:00am, right before the ½ hour for lunch. They yelled insults in Spanish at us. What is most upsetting is to be yelled at, and then the mockery. There was a Chicano agent who would yell: “This is our home. You go back to your countries.” And he would lift fistfuls of chains in both hands, offering them in mockery: “Let’s see, who wants shackles?” Those who ran they would hit and kick them to the ground, and shackle them.
I had started my shift at 4:00am, and they didn’t give me anything to eat until 10:00 pm. I felt my head was going to explode. In Waterloo [National Cattle Congress] they kept me sitting down without my sweatshirt and barefoot in the cold from 8:00 pm to 2:00 am, while they arranged the paperwork. Then they put me in one of the cages where they had the cots for sleeping. But they did not let us sleep at all for 48 hours. They kept coming every so often to run the scanner over the barcode of a bracelet they had put on us. They would come in shouting: “Wake up!” There were also cages with women. Those who asked to go to the bathroom were told not to be such a nuisance, and whenever they were finally taken, it was with four guards or chained, amid mockeries and humiliations. They made us eat and drink in shackles, and you had to lean way over sideways on the chair in order to sip a bit of water from the bottle. Then they would mock us for the way we walked with the chains, and since our clothes were too long on account of our short height, they would tell us “You look like clowns.”
AFFIDAVIT
I, MARDOQUEO VALLE‐CALLEJAS, Bureau of Prisons # 10456‐029, of 42 years of age, a native of Chimaltenango, Guatemala, attest to the following facts:
I got to work 3 years at Agriprocessors. At first they only gave 2 or 3 days of work per week, earning $180 to $200 a week. It was not enough to cover one’s own expenses, send the remittance, and pay the debt. I spent 14 months like that. But afterwards they expanded and gave more work. So then I was able to begin paying the debt. They would start paying $6.25 an hour. Every so many months they would raise you $0.25, until you reached $7.00 an hour. From there on they didn’t pay any more than that. I got to work double shift,
from 6:00 am to 3:00 pm and from 3:00 pm to 1:00am. They only gave a 15 minute break to go to the bathroom and 30 minutes for lunch. But they would take from you between a ½ hour and 3 hours of “overtime” on many days, and it was no use complaining; it became something accepted. I got to work up to 86 hours a week, but they didn’t want to recognize more than 60 hours by law. EVERYONE, even the bank, knew that we were undocumented.
When the raid started we didn’t realize it, because of the noise of the machinery and that we had earplugs on. But then they stopped the production line, and everyone was running already. Those of us from the chicken area were running over to the cows, and those from the cows ran toward the chicken side. We were surrounded. They rounded us up toward the middle like a bunch of chickens. By then the women began to cry. The officers yelled insults in Spanish and bad words. I cannot speak them because I am a Christian. Some people started crawling up on the roof of the freezer, all squashed up there, shaking, and the girls all crying.
There was no cellular signal to call one’s family. As the people came out to the yard, everyone was taking off their aprons and gloves. Those who were hiding were beaten and shackled. One had his nose all crushed, because they threw him face first against the wall. What hurts the most is that it was our very own, the “Chicano” policemen, the ones who treated us more worse. I never thought they would treat us like that. One worker was so nervous that he started running with his work knives. An agent pushed him to the ground, and the poor man stabbed himself in the leg. They shackled him just the same. Another one who was already chained told them “Can’t you see that he is badly wounded?” Right then, that guy who defended him, the agent kicked him in the legs and threw him to the ground. “Who told you to speak?” he told him. “If you meddle, I’m going to beat you up.”
When we got to Waterloo [National Cattle Congress] they stuck us in these cages, and they took away our sweatshirts that we had from the plant, and they left us to suffer cold, some barefoot. They gave little food, a piece of bread on a tray and a bottle of water, to eat and drink all chained up. And they would mock us and laugh at us. Then they wouldn’t let us sleep at all. Between the cold and them coming to order us around, they kept us two days without sleeping.
Ezra Merkin was fine when he liquidated Gabriel Capital before Shabbos.
Who was the Senator who blew his brains out? Was it Dan Flood of Pennsylvania who got taking bribes from me in the 1970s?
New Square, NY - The U.S. Justice Department is awaiting the decision of a British judge who could decide next month whether to send a former New Square village clerk to the United States to face fraud charges that are more than a decade old.
Avrum David Friesel, 56, the son of the village's only mayor, fled the country 11 years ago on the heels of the federal indictment.
The Justice Department in Washington, D.C., said today that Friesel's extradition hearing took place last month. The judge is expected to issue its judgment next month, spokeswoman Laura Sweeney said.
Friesel was charged with six other village leaders and a seventh man with stealing tens of millions of dollars from federal education and anti-poverty programs over three decades.
Four of the men have served prison terms and have been released, with a fifth man dying in prison. Another man remains a fugitive.
London's Metropolitan Police Department officers arrested Friesel in late April in downtown London, following several weeks of surveillance, officials said at the time. The U.S. Marshals Service assisted.
It was CNBC that first publicized the Gabriel liquidation on Friday but the report by Muckety News today is not exactly correct.
There was no liquidation in past tense. A liquidation will take years as there are billions of dollars of investor money left that must be delicately dealt with.
For the time being at least, Ezra is feeling ungezetzt and just wants out of the business so he can take care of investor lawsuits and all the dreck that comes with it.
The lawyer Noah Feldman married a Korean shiksa and was angry that his modern orthodox yeshiva didn't want her at a class reunion.
So he wrote a long disgusting article in the NY Times bashing frumkeit and tried to use twisted legal arguments to stop the eruv in Tenafly NJ. He has no shaychus to NJ. He just did it lehachiss.
So why is the Chabad shaliach at Yale University, Shmuel Hecht, founding a "society" with him?
Is it true that Lakewood yeshiva doesn't have any decent food to serve the bochurim because of the economic climate and ensuing drop off in donations?
Agudah fresser,
the climate changed in more ways than one ever since Yudi Kolko and Applegrad arrived on the Lakewood scene.
gut in himmel, the suspense over the ruling expected tomorrow over avremil the shmeckle mondrowitz has me on the edge of my chair.
Modern Miracle of (Crude) Oil
by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
Chanukah marks the ancient miracle of a day's supply of pure olive oil burning for eight days in the Holy Temple. This year, another miracle is oil-rich Arab nations in panic over the plunge in crude oil prices from $147 in the summer to less than $40 on Chanukah.
The Festival of Lights will also be remembered for the victory of a small band of Jews over Greek rulers who tried to destroy Judaism. However, the current generation also will remember, for at least a few days, the plunge in the price of crude oil that virtually no one predicted would be so swift and so far.
Similar to the effect of the 1973-74 Arab oil embargo that forced up the price of crude by nearly 500 percent to $40 a barrel, this year's spike ended up harming Arabs nations as much as anyone else.
The worldwide recession, which was sparked by extended credit in the United States but was exacerbated by inflationary prices that fueled the demand for more credit, has pushed oil-rich Arab nations into a frenzy over expected debts.
Analysts also have estimated that the plunge might succeed where the western world has failed in its attempt to stop Iran form becoming a nuclear power.
Asked about the prospects of Middle East peace amid increasingly violent and unstable Arab states and continuing struggles with Israel, Likud Knesset candidate Dan Meridor told Newsweek, "Chanukah is, among other things, a holiday of miracles. If oil prices stay low, this may open opportunities for tough sanctions to work."
He added, "When the Iranians were getting $140 a barrel, with a budget based on maybe $60 to $70 a barrel, they had a surplus they could pour into the economy to offset the impact of international sanctions … But if sanctions become really serious, and at [t same time oil prices remain at current levels, I think there is chance of getting the Iranian leadership to rethink their strategy."
The collapse of the crude oil market "is putting Iran under the kind of pressure that Tehran has not endured for several years," Newsweek noted. Its reporter Michael Hirsh wrote that the drop in the price of crude may even add enough pressure on Iran to abandon its nuclear program and help voters to defeat Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in next June's elections.
Iran's oil, which is of lower quality than other oil producers, fetches less than $35 a barrel on today's market. The country's inflation rate is 30 percent, and the government, burdened by outlays for the nuclear development program and other weapons systems, is looking at a $50 billion deficit.
The mood of the public is angry and several reports from Iran indicate that the regime is becoming more oppressive against protestors. Nevertheless, newspaper headlines last week bannered, "What has the government done with $200 billion in oil revenues?"
Saudi Arabia, whose oil sheikhs have been wading in opulence from billions of dollars of excess money, is worried about facing its first budget deficit in six years. Deficits also are expected in Bahrain, Oman and the United Arab Emirates.
Despite dizzying inflation in grain prices, partly fed by the rapid rise in the price of crude oil, "the real damage, of course, has been done to those oil exporters that thought high prices were here to stay," wrote former United Press International (UPI) editor Martin Walker.
"Russia, whose state budget was predicated on oil at $90 a barrel, has lost about 30 percent of its financial reserves as the trade balance worsened and the ruble began its sharp decline," he reported.
"The real estate bubble in Dubai has deflated, and, battered by the double effect of falling oil prices and OPEC's announced production cuts, the economies of the Gulf States are faltering.
http://ungaren.blogspot.com/2008/12/unorthodoxjew-officially-outs-himself.html
http://www.dfamilk.com/home.html
Many OU brands under this company
http://www.midwestagnet.com/Global/story.asp?S=9540158&nav=menu1585_4
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) - The nation's largest dairy cooperative and two former officers have agreed to pay a total of $12 million as part of a federal investigation into a possible price manipulation scheme.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has been investigating the Dairy Farmers of America for a series of 2004 trades of cheese futures on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. The price of cheese futures can affect milk prices.
Under the agreement announced Tuesday, a former chief executive of the cooperative, Gary Hanman, and former Chief Financial Officer Gerald Bos will pay part of the penalty.
The Kansas City-based cooperative said it wasn't admitting or denying wrongdoing but agreed to settle "to put this matter behind us."
http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2008/12/22/2008-12-22_controller_boils_as_millions_in_water_an.html
The company that runs the lucrative Hudson River cruise ship terminal rakes in millions of dollars a year on city-owned land but couldn't be bothered to pay its full water and sewer bill, an audit has found.
P&O Ports North America - which collects the revenues from 850,000 cruise passengers who board or disembark in Manhattan every year - ran up a $78,000 water and sewer bill from October 2006 to August 2008.
That's on top of an additional $75,000 it failed to pay in 2005 in fees related to its lease agreement for the West Side piers between 46th and 54th Sts.
"This is not a drop in the bucket," said city Controller William Thompson, who plans to release an audit about the unpaid bills this week.
As previously revealed, Thompson's audits also found other unpaid water and sewer bills this year.
Private hospitals owed more than $10 million, while the Brooklyn Army Terminal owed $240,000 and New York Skyports owed more than $37,000.
Thompson slammed both the Economic Development Corp., which controls the space, and the Department of Environmental Protection - the city's water and sewer arm - for letting scofflaws slide.
"New Yorkers are being asked to dig deeper and deeper into their emptier pockets, yet a number of city agencies are not doing their part to ensure that much-needed revenue makes it into the city's coffers," Thompson said.
A spokesman from the DEP declined to comment.
It's about time Buckwheat Thompson woke up about the deadbeats.
He was too busy having photo ops with Shea Hecht holding Rubashkin turkeys to have noticed.
Oil below $38 per barrel on weak economic reports
Tuesday December 23, 1:03 pm ET
By Chris Kahn, AP Energy Writer
Oil drops below $38 per barrel on weak economic reports, shrinking gross domestic product
Oil prices tumbled below $38 a barrel Tuesday on fresh evidence of weakness in the U.S. housing market and a shrinking gross domestic product that suggests the recession may be worsening.
A report by the Commerce Department showed that sales of new homes fell in November to the slowest pace in nearly 18 years, while new home prices dropped by the biggest amount in eight months.
A French investment manager losing 1.4 billion for his clients with Madoff, killed himself in his Manhattan office.
Right on Tom Friedman
*
LOS ANGELES (MarketWatch) -- Historians say Ponzi schemes and con men are a fact of life. The best, the brightest and the richest can all become victims: from President Ulysses S. Grant in 1884 when the partners of his Wall Street firm left him penniless a year before he died of throat cancer to Bernard Madoff's investors, many whom became instantly penniless, just before Christmas and Hanukkah. Greed is a fact of life.
Thomas Friedman said it best in the N.Y. Times: "I have no sympathy for Madoff. But the fact is, his alleged Ponzi scheme was only slightly more outrageous than the 'legal' scheme that Wall Street was running, fueled by cheap credit, low standards and high greed.
The U.S. stock market has already absorbed the worst of the selling pressure this year and will start to recover in 2009 but any progress might be limited."What do you call giving a worker who makes only $14,000 a year a nothing-down and nothing-to-pay-for-two-years mortgage to buy a $750,000 home, and then bundling that mortgage with 100 others into bonds, which Moody's or Standard & Poor's rate AAA, and then selling them to banks and pension funds the world over? That is what our financial industry was doing. If that isn't a pyramid scheme, what is?"
Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse along comes Madoff, the new poster boy for everything that's happened to the America's soul the past eight years: greed, arrogance, stupidity and megalomania.
The Arab Sole - Tunku Varadarajan
A vast swath of people, from Morocco to Iraq, have found cultural and tribal, even civilizational, catharsis in a 20-second display of theater comprising the hurling of shoes at George W. Bush at a press conference in Baghdad. Yet only a people who live under the boots of their rulers celebrate the throwing of a shoe at a guest.
Is this how their heroism is now defined? To me - to many - this is alarming proof of the depth of Arab impotence, of the Lilliputian self-image that drives Muslim Arabs to take to terrorism, to assault that which they cannot comprehend. The irony that has been lost on them is the fact that in the entire Arab world, only in Bushified Iraq could such an act of protest be possible. The writer is a professor at the Stern Business School at NYU and research fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution. (Forbes
UOJ, Have you seen the Reb Yakov Horowitz video on youtube?
It is on VIN as well. Care to comment? It gave me goose bumps.
Fox joins battle cry for details of US bail-outDavid Hirst
December 24, 2008 Page 1 of 2 Single page view
The broadcaster has a good chance of making the Treasury come clean.
IN AN aggressive and unprecedented confrontation with the Bush Administration, Fox TV has joined Bloomberg News in demanding it reveal details of who is receiving billions in US bail-out funding.
In an action almost identical to Bloomberg's freedom of information requests concerning Federal Reserve bail-outs, Fox Business Network has filed a lawsuit against the US Treasury Department over its failure to provide information on the bail-out funds or respond to FBN's requests filed under the FOI Act.
At the weekend, Bloomberg revealed the US Federal Reserve had also purchased $US308.5 billion ($A453 billion) in commercial paper and lent $US631.8 billion under eight apparently new credit programs.
But Bloomberg revealed these huge infusions of funds would be appraised by Moody's Investors Service, Standard & Poor's and Fitch, prompting widespread criticism.
These companies have been criticised for their failure to detect credit problems to date, issuing top credit ratings to $US3.2 trillion in subprime mortgage-backed securities that are at the heart of the financial crisis.
Bloomberg reports Keith Allman, from Enstruct Corp, a company that trains investors in financial modelling and asset valuation, as saying: "It is foolhardy to rely on the three New York-based companies."
A more devastating comment could not be made.
"They're outsourcing the credit assessment to a group of people whose recent performance has been unbelievably bad," said Allman, the author of three books on structured finance and a former vice-president of Citigroup's securitised markets unit.
"If their goal is to not take a loss on these assets, they should be hiring independent analysts."
This was just one of many attacks cited by Bloomberg concerning the financial arrangements.
The Treasury Department appears to be in a particularly difficult position as Fox has a good chance of gaining access to highly guarded information. Fox is demanding details of the Troubled Assets Relief Program spending of hundreds of billions by the Treasury Department, while Bloomberg is seeking details of the New York Federal Reserve's bail-out that amounts to trillions.
Either way, Fox joining the fray places the two key US financial arms under enormous pressure to come clean and tell US taxpayers where the vast, secret slush fund that is bailing out US financial and non-financial companies is going.
On Friday, Fox posted on its website that: "Fox Business Network has filed a lawsuit against the United States Treasury Department over failure to provide information on the bail-out funds."
Kevin Magee, the executive vice-president of Fox News, said: "The Treasury has repeatedly ignored our requests for information on how the Government is allocating money to these troubled institutions.
"In a critical time like this, amidst mounting corruptions and an economic crisis, we as a news organisation feel it's more important than ever to hold the Government accountable."
Steven Mintz, of Mintz & Gold LLP, who is a legal counsel for the network, said: "Despite the several requests for expedited information … it has become apparent that the Treasury will not co-operate without mounting legal pressure.
"Therefore, we have filed a complaint in the Federal Court in New York."
From the Gregor Mendel School of Genetics - Analogy Division:
Greed is to Fraud, as Ponzi is to Louima.
Upcoming Ponzi-Louima Show: Social Security. Will there be any money left for a bailout? Time to stock up on the Vaseline. Hay Caramba, Chica.
Rabbi Horowitz is to be commended for his achievements in the world of chinuch. I did not yet see the YouTube clip.
I thought I would never see a rabbi cry for the lost souls of sexualy violated victims of rabbinic molestation.
Yes We Can!
Torah uMADOFF
By the way, does anyone know why someone is venting on blogs wanting to know what kind of oversight YU has over me?
Why should it bother anyone if a retired guy still gets a company car & driver and a triplex on Central Park worth over $15 million?
http://www.omig.state.ny.us/data/content/view/87/73/
You wouldn't believe all the heimisher ganovim, doctors, dentists, pharmacists, etc, who are banned from billing Medicaid because of fraud.
Follow the link and search by county, like Kings, Rockland, etc.
By Don Lee and Tiffany Hsu
11:11 PM PST, December 23, 2008
Reporting from Los Angeles and Shanghai --
Melamine in Chinese-produced milk powder has sickened hundreds of thousands of children and added to a growing list of made-in-China foods banned across the globe. Now, some scientists and consumer advocates are raising concerns that fish from China may also be contaminated with the industrial chemical.
China is the world's largest producer of farm-raised seafood, exporting billions of dollars worth of shrimp, catfish, tilapia, salmon and other fish. The U.S. imported about $2 billion of seafood products from China in 2007, almost double the volume of four years earlier, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
But industry experts and businesspeople in China say that melamine has been routinely added to fish and animal feed to artificially boost protein readings. And new research suggests that, unlike in cows and pigs, the edible flesh in fish that have been fed melamine contains residues of the nitrogen-rich substance.
Melamine, commonly used in plastics and dishware, can lead to urinary problems such as kidney stones and even renal failure.
Last year, pet foods made with melamine-laced ingredients from China sickened or killed thousands of dogs and cats in the U.S. This year, infant formula tainted with the chemical has been linked to illness in 294,000 small children and six deaths in China, according to China's Ministry of Health.
In the U.S., fish from China can be found in the frozen food aisle in supermarkets and is served in posh restaurants.
"China's a big place, and it does a lot of processing, and cheaply too," said Brian Dedmon, purchasing manager for the Fish King distribution plant in Burbank.
Fish King, which supplies hundreds of Southern California restaurants and has a store in Glendale, says it buys processed snow crab meat, squid and other seafood from China to meet market demand and because the price is competitive. Dedmon says the company relies on government inspections, its importers and its own experience to ensure the fish it buys is safe.
"We're definitely concerned about melamine, but by the time the fish gets to us, health issues should've been taken care of by the government agencies and brokers that we go through," he said.
Not on the checklist
But even though some U.S. fish importers are voluntarily testing for melamine, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which is responsible for ensuring the safety of imported fish, currently doesn't require seafood products to be screened for melamine. Yet research from its own scientists has raised a warning flag.
Laboratory studies of melamine-fed catfish, trout, tilapia and salmon by the FDA's Animal Drugs Research Center found that fish tissues had melamine concentrations of up to 200 parts per million. That's 80 times the maximum "tolerable" amount set by the FDA for safe consumption.
Iddya Karunasagar, a United Nations fish-product safety expert in Rome, said the FDA's research suggested fish would have to ingest large amounts of melamine to pose a health threat to humans, something that he considered unlikely. But he said there were no data on melamine levels in Chinese-produced fish and animal feed.
Other scientists said testing of melamine in farm-raised fish from China should be made mandatory because of the dearth of information about melamine levels in Chinese feed and fish.
"That's the problem; no one has a clue how much concentration and for how long" fish from China have ingested melamine, said Jim Riviere, director of chemical toxicology research at North Carolina State University in Raleigh. "There's an issue of relative human safety," he said. "It would be prudent to screen for melamine."
An FDA representative in Washington wouldn't comment on why Chinese-produced seafood didn't have to be analyzed for melamine when imported to the U.S. Nor were FDA researchers made available to comment on their agency's findings, reported recently in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.
The only reason why the orgy was cancelled is b/c this is copy rited to GER INC,
Copy & Paste,
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3642845,00.html
Concern About Anti-Semitism
by The Editors The Jewish Week
Even before many of us heard the name Bernard Madoff, there were worrisome indications the severe economic downturn could produce a search for scapegoats — with Jews playing an all-too-familiar role as the villains of choice.
Then Madoff exploded on the scene with an alleged Ponzi scheme that seemed particularly bereft of morality. According to the Anti-Defamation League, the sensational case has “prompted an outpouring of anti-Semitic comments on mainstream and extremist Web sites,” despite the fact that so many of Madoff’s victims are themselves Jewish.
The ADL concern is appropriate, but it should be tempered with some perspective: this is not the America of 1932, when the Great Depression produced an anti-Semitism that was not confined to the nation’s marginal fringes.
While the virus of anti-Semitism has mutated once again, adapting itself to modes of online communication that can give even the vilest groups the appearance of legitimacy, it is also true that Jews are more secure, more integrated into the American mainstream and better organized to defend themselves and fight the scourge of bigotry than in those dark days.
It’s hardly surprising that hardened haters jumped on the Madoff case as fresh evidence Jews are corrupt schemers, and clogged the comment sections of legitimate news sites and blogs with their venom. A Newsday reporter confided that he was shocked at the number and degree of hateful, anti-Jewish comments posted in response to the newspaper’s Madoff-related coverage. But there is no evidence that such sentiments have caught on with the broader public.
The American Jewish Committee criticized The New York Times for being “over the top” in emphasizing Jewish connections to the Madoff scandal. Executive director David Harris, in a letter to the Times published Dec. 21, noted that there were “at least three” references to Madoff’s being Jewish, in its initial news coverage of the scandal, “before the article continued inside. Why?” But news coverage of the connection between Madoff and both his Jewish enablers and victims has generally been sensitive and fair. Non-Jews who have reacted publicly have, in many cases, expressed sympathy for the community’s devastating losses.
That doesn’t mean there is no reason for concern.
The economic crisis is producing a kind of deep anxiety we haven’t experienced in generations. Millions have seen their retirement nest eggs evaporate; countless homeowners have or will face foreclosure; giants of American banking and industry stand on the brink of disaster. Malfeasance — in corporate boardrooms and on Wall Street — is clearly part of the story, as is the impulse to assign blame.
History teaches that severe economic crises breed bigotry as fear trumps rationality. We could yet face a serious rise in anti-Semitism beyond the nutty fringe that is today spewing venom on the World Wide Web. But that hasn’t happened yet. Close monitoring is appropriate; panic is not.
Oil falls 9 percent on economic gloom
Wednesday December 24, 2:43 pm ET
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Oil dropped 9 percent on Wednesday as another round of gloomy economic data showed the United States has fallen deeper into recession.
U.S. crude settled at $35.35, down $3.63 or 9.31 percent. London Brent crude settled at $36.61 a barrel, down $3.75.
The losses came after government data showing U.S. jobless claims rose to a 26-year high and consumers cut spending for the fifth consecutive month in November.
Nearly 2 million U.S. workers have lost their jobs this year, driving the unemployment rate up to 6.7 percent and slowing consumer spending as incomes shrank.
The negative economic news reinforced expectations of a continued slowdown in energy consumption.
"Until the price is low enough to break through the cloud of economic gloom and doom, oil is going to be under some pressure," said Mike Fitzpatrick, vice president at MF Global in New York.
Oil prices have dropped about $110 a barrel since July as a global financial crisis has cut consumer and business demand for fuels, raising alarm bells for OPEC producers that have slashed 5 percent of global oil production to stem the slide.
The dismal economic data outlook overshadowed a U.S. Energy Information Administration report on Wednesday showing that U.S. crude inventories dropped 3.1 million barrels last week as imports slowed, countering expectations of a 400,000 barrel rise.
Gasoline stockpiles, meanwhile, rose by 3.3 million barrels, exceeding the build of 500,000 barrels predicted by analysts. Distillates, including heating oil, rose by 1.8 million barrels versus expectations for a 200,000 barrel increase.
"Although this market could scoop up some modest support off of the 3.1 million barrel draw in total crude stocks, the data looks bearish from our perspective given the larger-than-expected increases in (refined fuel) supplies," said Jim Ritterbusch, president of Ritterbusch and Associates in Galena, Illinois.
Record inventories of crude at the NYMEX delivery point in Cushing, Oklahoma, also may have encouraged selling, analysts said.
Demand, which has deteriorated during a worldwide economic downturn, sank again. Distillate consumption slipped 5.1 percent over the past four weeks compared with the same period a year ago and gasoline demand fell by 2.7 percent.
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) already has announced cuts of around 5 percent in global oil supplies and may call an emergency meeting before March if prices extend their slide, OPEC's President Chakib Khelil said on Tuesday.
I have a better idea, let the boys come to me for "Man to Man" chusen classes!
Hamercaz.com > News > Israel National GET RSS
Ger In Israel Adds Extra Year To Cheder
Dec 24, 2008
Israel -- Some sharp minds in Ger have come up with a solution to help men find their mates.
It seems that more and more young men in Ger have not been able to find their intended. Complicating the issue is the fact that the age of marriage in the community has continuously gotten younger, to the point that the accepted age for Shidduchim is now 18. A 20 year-old man in Ger is considered to be “old”, and can have a very hard time getting a Shidduch.
Prominent members of Ger have been trying to solve the growing problem. They decided to implement an idea that would have more than one benefit.
Ger is known for the care they take in sheltering their children from all influences not strictly Jewish. This focus is even more intense in Gerrer elementary schools. Understandably, certain rules and regulations must ease slightly once boys enter yeshiva high school.
Heads of Ger have decided to add a year to the Cheder school cycle, moving graduation to take place after 9th grade instead of 8th. Students would still remain in yeshiva high school for four years after that.
They feel that this would help the Shidduch issue in the short run, and have long term effects. The immediate gain is that there will be a graduating class missing, forcing Shadchanim to consider young men who are older than 18 as they attempt to marry off Gerrer girls.
In the long run, the age of Shidduchim would go up by a year, to 19, as families of prospective girls would not consider a student still in yeshiva high school.
An additional benefit would be keeping Gerrer boys in the stricter environment of Cheder for an extra year. Another perk would be a slight decrease in financial pressure, as Chadarim have smaller budgets than yeshivos do. The decision makers hope that this will help cause a more even-handed distribution of funds to all Gerrer institutions.
http://www.walletpop.com/article/_a/bbdp/liposuction-doc-uses-human-fat-for-fuel/285917
Peter C. Beller, Forbes.com
Liposuctioning unwanted blubber out of pampered Los Angelenos may not seem like a dream job, but it has its perks. Free fuel is one of them.
For a time, Beverly Hills doctor Craig Alan Bittner turned the fat he removed from patients into biodiesel that fueled his Ford SUV and his girlfriend's Lincoln Navigator.
Love handles can power a car? Frighteningly, yes. Fat--whether animal or vegetable--contains triglycerides that can be extracted and turned into diesel. Poultry companies such as Tyson are looking into powering their trucks on chicken schmaltz, and biofuel start-ups such as Nova Biosource are mixing beef tallow and pig lard with more palatable sources such as soybean oil. Mike Shook of Agri Process Innovations, a builder of biodiesel plants, says this year's batch of U.S. biodiesel was likely more than half animal-derived since the price of soybeans soared.
A gallon of grease will get you about a gallon of fuel, and drivers can get about the same amount of mileage from fat fuel as they do from regular diesel, according to Jenna Higgins of the National Biodiesel Board. Animal fats need to undergo an additional step to get rid of free fatty acids not present in vegetable oils, but otherwise, there's no difference, she says.
Greenies like the fact that waste, such as coffee grounds and french-fry grease, can be turned into power. "The vast majority of my patients request that I use their fat for fuel--and I have more fat than I can use," Bittner wrote on lipodiesel.com. "Not only do they get to lose their love handles or chubby belly but they get to take part in saving the Earth." Bittner's lipodiesel Web site is no longer online.
Using fat to fuel cars might be environmentally friendly, but it's definitely illegal in California to use human medical waste to power vehicles, and Bittner is being investigated by the state's public health department.
Although it's unclear when Bittner started and stopped making fat fuel or how he made it, his activities came to light after recent lawsuits filed by patients that allege he allowed his assistant and his girlfriend to perform surgeries without a medical license.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122999068109728409.html
Spot Red Flags Before You Write Out a Check; A Guide for Vetting Charities
... a truly transparent charity will provide key financial data on its Web site, including its annual report, an audited financial statement and its Form 990, which shows the organization's assets and liabilities, what it pays top staff, how much money it gives away and how much it spends on overhead. If the data aren't readily available, "then you've got a charity that's not paying enough attention to where the money comes from and where it goes," says Paul Light, a professor at New York University's Wagner School of Public Service.
If the charity doesn't post these data online, you can call and request them. A nonprofit must provide access to its Form 990 to anyone who asks.
The charity should willingly and clearly answer your questions. If it does not, that's a red flag, says Mr. Light.
New Defendant in Dreier Scandal May Have Had History With Marc Dreier
Posted by Dan Slater
Another shoe has dropped in the case of fallen lawyer Marc Dreier, who’s alleged to have perpetrated a massive fraud against a group of hedge funds. In a criminal complaint, prosecutors are attempting to tie a former broker, Kosta Kovachev, to the fraud. Kovachev was charged with one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
The complaint alleges, among other things, that Kovachev pretended to be the controller of a realty company to effect a meeting with a hedge fund. (We’ve confirmed that the company was New York-based Solow Realty, though the name is not in the complaint.) Dreier purported to sell promissory notes on behalf of the realty company, but the notes were fictitious, according to the complaint. Federal officials have said that Solow was uninvolved.
Dreier and Kovachev have crossed paths before. This 2004 NYT article, which details a legal skirmish between New York real estate competitors Sheldon Solow (owner of Solow Realty) and Peter Kalikow, tells the following story.
Kalikow sued Solow, believing he was responsible for newspaper ads listing more than 400 creditors from Kalikow’s personal bankruptcy proceeding in 1991. The ads suggested that Kalikow had misled the bankruptcy court about the extent of his assets. But the bankruptcy had been settled years before, and there were no outstanding creditors.
A bankruptcy judge agreed that Kalikow had proved that Solow was the man behind the notices. The judge, according to the Times, said that even a man from Mars would conclude that the ads represented “an affront to the court” and a “somewhat sleazy course of conduct.” He ordered Solow to pay Kalikow’s expenses, and, according to the Times, “practically invited him to pursue claims against Mr. Solow’s law firm before ‘professional or legal tribunals that govern professional conduct.’ ”
At that time, Solow’s law firm was Dreier LLP, according to the Times. And here’s where Dreier and Kovachev come in: At the bottom of the ads was the name of a company, Evergence Capital Advisors, and a telephone number, the Times reported. An investigation revealed that Evergence was a dissolved Florida company that had been headed by Kosta Kovachev, but the phone number led to Dreier LLP. The ad reportedly generated 58 phone calls to Dreier’s firm, according to the Times.
During a subsequent deposition, Dreier acknowledged that Kovachev was his client and that he had a second client involved in the case, Sheldon Solow, according to the Times. A lawyer for Kalikow, Stanley S. Arkin, criticized what he called Solow’s “irrational animus for [Kalikow],” but he reserved his sharpest jab for Dreier. “He was facilitating an angry and vicious assault on his client’s perceived enemy,” Arkin told the Times.
A Solow spokesman declined to comment. Mr. Kovachev, who is expected to appear in court today, could not be reached for comment this morning.
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I remember the days in the late 1980s when the lower east side resembled a scene from Dawn of the Dead. The only two industries were Heroine sales and real estate speculation, by warehousing boarded up buildings. This was also during the time when Dinkins was mayor and homelessness was at epidemic proportions. The thing I remember most was that Kalikow was the biggest landlord and held the most number of warehoused buildings. I always wondered how he and his family slept at night in their 5th ave mansion as all those homeless people slept on the street in front of those buildings. I am not religious, but if there is a hell, this guy should be getting an executive position.
http://clusterstock.alleyinsider.com/2008/12/the-education-of-bernie-madoff-is-this-where-madoff-went-to-law-school
Is This Where Madoff Went To Law School?
John Carney | Dec 23, 08 3:20 PM
As regular readers know, we've been trying to sort through the truths, untruths, unknowns and improbablities about arch-Ponzi schemer Bernard Madoff. Earlier this afternoon we explored the deep confusions about Madoff's claims to have attended law school. We couldn't find one law school that would confirm he had attended.
There is one law school, however, that still hasn't been able to determine whether Madoff matriculated there. Brooklyn Law School says it needs to check records kept in its basement in order to confirm or deny Madoff's attendance. We've faxed our request (a step they said was necessary to check the records) but haven't yet received a response.
Could Madoff have attended Brooklyn Law School? It seems plausible. He was raised in Far Rockaway, which would have meant Brooklyn Law School's campus would keep him close to his family What's more, a 1989 Forbes article we've unearthed actually mentions that Madoff "never quite finished Brooklyn Law School."
Is that conclusive? Not yet. The Forbes article, like almost every profile of Madoff prior to the revelations of his scheme, contains many dubious statements. It describes how Madoff made money in his managed fund, but never hints that Madoff could have been running a scam. Of course, it's possible that Madoff wasn't yet running his firm as a Ponzi scheme. There are just so many unanswered questions.
We'll keep you posted when we hear from Brooklyn Law School.
Madoff accountant David Friehling hurled water at a Fox News van, which is everywhere on the Internet right now. Why so angry? Maybe because last week, Dear John Thain suggested that 70-year-old Bernie Madoff could never have pulled off the whole Ponzi scheme all by himself.
Sen. Charles Grassley’s investigation into conflicts of interest among doctors has led Charles Nemeroff to step down from his chairmanship of Emory University’s psychiatry department.
Nemeroff, a prominent researcher in clinical depression, has been hit by a steady stream of criticism since Grassley (R., Iowa) alleged he failed to disclose hundreds of thousands in payments from GlaxoSmithKline. Emory’s investigation turned up more than $800,000 in income from Glaxo that Nemeroff didn’t report to the university, for more than 250 speaking engagements over six years.
Emory won’t ask for research grants or other contracts involving Nemeroff for two years. That voluntary ban would apply to National Institutes of Health funding. He’ll remain a professor.
Recently, Grassley blasted Emory for saying Nemeroff’s paid speaking engagements weren’t promoting products but were “CME-like,” referring to continuing medical education lectures that doctors attend. In a press release announcing Nemeroff’s resignation, Emory said its review supports Nemeroff’s contention his lectures weren’t product specific.
Still, the university said, “though Dr. Nemeroff viewed these talks as educational lectures not subject to disclosure, Emory policies required otherwise.”
Teacher gets only community service for molesting child
By Ruth Sinai
Haaretz - December 23, 2008
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/objects/pages/PrintArticleEn.jhtml?itemNo=1049039
A teacher who molested a student for two and a half years, starting when the boy was 5, will perform six months of community service and pay the boy NIS 2,000 in a plea bargain reached Monday.
Michael Maguri admitted that on several occasions he ordered the victim to go with him to an empty room and then grabbed the boy's genitals, causing him physical pain.
An expert witness testified that the defendant posed a low risk to the public. A psychologist said Maguri, who is married with four children, underwent extensive rehabilitation for sex offenders, is no longer a teacher and helps the needy.
Ramle Magistrate's Court Judge Ami Kobo approved the plea bargain while noting the severity of the crime, which carries a seven-year prison sentence. He cited the defendant's lack of a criminal record, his financial hardship and his confession among his reasons for approving the deal.
Maguri will carry out his community service with the religious council in the southern town where he now lives.
Yitzhak Kadman, executive director of the National Council for the Child, called the plea bargain "a prize for pedophiles."
He said the light punishment resulted from "a combination of an overloaded prosecution that hastens to make unacceptable and infuriating plea bargains with courts that don't have the power to reject distorting plea bargains."
Related articles:
Israeli expert: 70,000 children suffer abuse each year in Israel
Pope greets Christmas with appeal for abused kids
VATICAN CITY – Pope Benedict XVI celebrated Christmas Midnight Mass early Thursday by sending out an appeal for children who are abused, forced to live on the street or serve as soldiers.
In the splendor of St. Peter's Basilica, Benedict marked the birth with a call to the faithful to help children who are denied the love of their parents and those who are exploited across the world.
"The Child of Bethlehem summons us once again to do everything in our power to put an end to the suffering of these children," he said.
Delivering his homily in Italian, Benedict recalled the plight of "street children who do not have the blessing of a family home, of those children who are brutally exploited as soldiers and made instruments of violence, instead of messengers of reconciliation and peace."
He also spoke of minors who are "victims of the industry of pornography and every other appalling form of abuse, and thus are traumatized in the depths of their soul."
The pope did not specifically mention the issue of lawsuits and other complaints brought in the United States and elsewhere by Catholics who allege they were sexually abused by priests when they were youngsters.
As Midnight Mass began on Thursday, the 81-year-old Benedict, dressed in white and gold-colored vestments, walked in a procession up the basilica's main aisle, smiling and stopping several times to shake outstretched hands and bless children.
As Benedict left the basilica through the main aisle, Yudi Kolko had jumped the barriers got close to the pope but was quickly blocked on the ground by security.
The Vatican's spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said he did not know if Kolko was looking to chap a feel, but added that the disturbance hadn't caused any problems.
"The Holy Father continued on his way calmly. I imagine it was someone who wanted to greet him or pay homage to him," Lombardi said by telephone. "I have no reason to believe he was dangerous to old men."
http://chassidic.blogspot.com/2008/12/rochmunim-bnei-rochmunim.html
Chassidic Whistleblower
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Rochmunim B'nei Rochmunim
A friend of mine told me, he used to work for a Chassidic guy that had a business on the other side of one of the bridges. Every morning the boss would pick up my friend and then he would make a stop at one of the corners where Mexicans stand waiting to be picked up for a job. He would pick one Mexican and head out to work. After the bridge he would stop by a store and tell the worker to wait there while he parks his car, and he would then drive off leaving the guy behind. He would do this every morning, and all this: to save money when he passes the toll booth (carpool).
In case you are not shedding tears yet, let me help you out here. Put yourself in the worker's position. He waited there thinking he's be picked up for a job, so that he can buy some food and other enecesseties. His excitement is indescribable when someone picked him out of many others. When the boss tells him to wait out there, he doesn't suspect anything. He waits there one hour, two hours till he finally realized what just happened.
He puts his hand into his pockets and counts the change. He doesn't have enough money for a ride home and for breakfast, certainly not for both. He's got no cel phone to call, and even if he had, he wouldn't have whom to call. He's here alone, no friends or family, certainly none who own cars and would come pick him up.
With no choice left, he starts offering himself for work at the local stores, but why would they need him? They have their steady workers. So he starts begging people in the streets for money, but when was the last time you gave a Mexican a dime? Finally, he got some change and hops on to the bus and gets back home. He's got no money, no food, and no faith in humans.
I know, I know, he's illeagal here. He shoud be deported. We shouldn't give them work because they're taking away work from Americans. But to do such a thing??? How mean can a person be? WHERE IS THE "ROCHMUNIS" (mercy)?
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&refer=home&sid=a.vf3pTm9hlQ
Dec. 24 (Bloomberg) -- New York University, the largest private university in the U.S. by number of students, lost $24 million in investments managed by Bernard Madoff, the institution said in a lawsuit filed against J. Ezra Merkin, Gabriel Capital LP fund and Ariel Fund Ltd.
Merkin’s hedge funds invested NYU’s money with Madoff without telling investors or proper due diligence, the school alleged in a complaint filed yesterday in New York state court in Manhattan. NYU had $94 million invested in Ariel, which operated as a limited partnership with Merkin and Fortis Bank, according to the lawsuit. Fortis is also named as a defendant.
The NYU claim adds to a growing list of suits by Madoff victims against feeder funds. Gabriel Capital, a $1.5 billion fund, plans to liquidate due to Madoff losses, Merkin said in a Dec. 18 investor letter. The fund lost 39 percent this year through Nov. 30, mirroring the drop in the S&P 500 Index.
“Without making disclosures in the quarterly reports to investors, and in the face of an extraordinary number of ‘red flags,’ Merkin, for years, simply turned over a substantial portion of Ariel’s funds to Madoff,” NYU alleged in the complaint. NYU alleged Merkin made all the investment and executive decisions for Ariel.
Clients of Madoff had about $36 billion with his firm, according to a Bloomberg tally that may include some double counting. Before his arrest on Dec. 11, Madoff confessed to employees that his “giant Ponzi scheme” may have cost as much as $50 billion, according to an FBI complaint. Madoff has been charged by federal prosecutors with one count of securities fraud and faces as much as 10 years in prison if convicted.
Restraining Order
New York State Supreme Court Justice Herman Cahn in Manhattan today issued a temporary restraining order barring Merkin “from taking any action to liquidate Ariel” prior to a Jan. 6 hearing before Justice Richard Lowe. Cahn is also prohibiting Merkin from taking any action to move assets of Ariel or Gabriel, according to the order.
Merkin told Ariel investors in a Dec. 18 letter it would wind down the fund in light of the losses from the Madoff fraud and “engage in an orderly disposition of its portfolio positions” over the next several years.
NYU is “very pleased” with Cahn’s order, school spokesman John Beckman said today in a statement.
Cahn’s order, which also barred the destruction of Madoff related documents, “will have no impact on the previously announced plans for Ariel Fund” to wind down, Merkin’s lawyer, Andrew Levander, said today in a statement. “It is significant that the court rejected NYU’s request to prevent Ariel Fund from selling assets as part of its wind-down process, and we expect that process to continue.”
39 Percent Loss
Merkin reported a 39 percent year-to-date loss, which amounts to about 25 percent of Ariel’s net assets, according to the lawsuit.
“It is unclear why the 25 percent loss announced by Merkin should necessitate a ‘winding down’ of the fund -- unless Merkin simply turned over all the fund’s cash to Madoff,” NYU said in the complaint. “It is clear that entrusting the management of NYU’s remaining investment to Merkin would place these assets at substantial risk of dissipation.”
Law School Suit
Merkin, the chairman of GMAC LLC, the finance arm of General Motors Corp. that is 51 percent owned by Cerberus Capital Management LLC, was also blamed by Yeshiva University for losses. The school said it lost about $110 million in investments tied to Madoff, most through Merkin’s Ascot Partners LP fund.
Merkin resigned as a school trustee and its investment chairman on Dec. 12. Madoff was also a trustee. Tufts University said last week that it lost $20 million, or less than 2 percent of its endowment, from investments through Ascot.
New York Law School sued Merkin and Ascot last week for investing in funds run by Madoff. That suit, filed in Manhattan federal court, seeks class action, or group, status on behalf of other Ascot investors. The law school allegedly had $3 million invested in Ascot.
Princeton, Columbia and Yale Universities and the University of Pennsylvania said they have no exposure to Madoff. The Dalton School, a private school on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, also had no exposure, said Robert Kasdin, the president of the board. The school received donations of $100,000 from Bernard and Ruth Madoff’s family foundation in 2004 and 2005.
Madoff Fraud
The alleged Madoff fraud has affected wealthy individuals from around the world. Liliane Bettencourt, the world’s wealthiest woman, entrusted part of her $22.9 billion fortune with Madoff through a fund manager who was found dead in New York yesterday, people familiar with the matter said.
The body of Access International Advisors co-founder Thierry Magon de La Villehuchet was found in his Madison Avenue office yesterday. Police said he probably killed himself.
Other investors including Spanish billionaire Alicia Koplowitz, U.S. moviemaker Steven Spielberg and Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel have also lost money from Madoff’s alleged scheme.
Merkin was paid a 1 percent management fee of the net asset value of Ariel and an incentive fee of 20 percent of the annual increase, according to the NYU suit.
“As Madoff reported illusory profits and converted the assets that Merkin delivered over to him, Merkin’s own compensation soared,” NYU alleged in the complaint.
NYU’s endowment was $2.16 billion as of June 30, 2007, according to the National Association of College and University Business Officers, a Washington-based organization.
The case is New York University v. Ariel Fund Ltd., 8603803/2008, New York State Supreme Court (Manhattan).
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123008658345032311.html
By CHRISTINA S.N. LEWIS
Israeli diamond merchant Lev Leviev became an overnight sensation in Manhattan real estate last year when he paid prime prices for the old headquarters of the New York Times and the Apthorp, a tony apartment building on the Upper West Side.
Now both projects are suffering. The Apthorp's partners are warring in court, the condominium-conversion project is in danger of defaulting, and only one unit has sold in the six months since the $1 billion project was announced, according to court documents and interviews with people familiar with the project.
On Friday, Mr. Leviev filed an emergency injunction to wrest control of the development from its current managing partner and 50% owner, Maurice Mann, owner of New York property firm Mann Realty. Legal papers filed by a unit of Mr. Leviev's Israel-based company, Africa Israel Investments Ltd., charge Mr. Mann has "run amok as manager" of the project, spending operations money on his personal legal fees and allowing employees to live in the Apthorp's vacant apartments.
Theodore Steingut, Mr. Mann's attorney, declined to comment on the injunction because he hadn't seen it. But he said "sniping" from Africa Israel had made the project's management more difficult, and that many of Africa Israel's claims are in error.
Meanwhile, the former Times building, vacated when the newspaper moved to a new development nearby, remains largely unleased even though the building's renovation is complete.
Mr. Leviev is one of Israel's richest and most famous entrepreneurs. A Russian emigrant, he built a diamond distribution empire second only to De Beers, according to his company.
But this year, Mr. Leviev's leverage has hurt him. Africa Israel shares have fallen more than 80% in the past year and plummeted 20% in the past month alone, to $4.25 Tuesday on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange. In the fall, Africa Israel announced a $475 million third-quarter loss because of falling real-estate values, mainly in Russia, and sold several of its New York assets to pay down debt.
These included half its stake in the Times building, which an unnamed investor is buying for $50 million plus an assumption of half the building's $720 million debt. Mr. Leviev paid $525 million for the 780,000-square-foot landmarked building in 2007, triple what the New York Times Co. had sold it for just three years earlier.
The 16-story building recently completed a $200 million renovation, according to a person briefed on the project. All floors are listed as available on its Web site, and some Midtown Manhattan office-leasing brokers said they hadn't heard of any deals. The Times building's leasing agents at CB Richard Ellis declined to comment.
The Apthorp's troubles appear to be a combination of the collapsing market and internal strife. In March 2007, Mr. Leviev and Mann Realty paid $426 million for the residence. With 163 units, it was built in 1908, and former residents have included Conan O'Brien, Cyndi Lauper and Rosie O'Donnell. At the time, some of the units were renting for more than $20,000 a month, but the new owners decided to convert the building to condos.
The conversion proceeded with Mr. Mann as the managing partner. Anglo Irish Bank Corp. provided a $385 million loan and Apollo Real Estate Advisors LP gave a $135 million mezzanine loan to purchase, renovate and market the development. Last summer, the developers began offering condos at nearly $3,000 a square foot, placing the building's sell-out value at approximately $1 billion. But as the real-estate market plummeted, Apollo began objecting to the project's budget, saying its business plan no longer made sense because of falling prices and cost overruns. In August, Apollo made a capital call of $12 million to bring its loan back in balance. It was paid.
In the first week of December, Apollo made another $22.7 million capital call. Apthorp's management, controlled by Mr. Mann, responded with a $500 million lawsuit, claiming the repayment request was an improper "ransom" payment and accusing Apollo of trying to take over the Apthorp at a bargain price.
Mr. Mann quickly dropped the suit, but it infuriated Mr. Leviev, who moved to oust Mann Realty as manager. On Friday, Mr. Leviev filed a request for an emergency injunction in New York Supreme Court demanding that Mr. Mann submit to an arbitration proceeding to choose a new third-party manager for the project.
Mr. Leviev alleges in court documents that Mann Realty's "woeful mismanagement has jeopardized the viability of the entire project, putting the loans in serious danger of imminent default."
After Jan. 9, Apollo may declare the loan in default, according to Mr. Leviev's attorney, Y. David Scharf. "The project could be brought to a grinding half," he said. Apollo declined to comment. Meanwhile, the Apthorp has cut prices. The condos are being offered at an average price of roughly $2,150 per square foot, according to listing aggregator StreetEasy.com.
As the mind boggling details of the biggest financial swindle in history continue to unfold, we learn today that the alleged perpetrator, Bernard Madoff has been granted conditional bail by a NY Judge.
The judge in the fraud case has set new conditions for his bail, including a curfew and ankle-monitoring bracelet for the disgraced investor.
Madoff remains free on bail, with his wife and brother serving as co-signers for his bail package. A hearing had been scheduled for Wednesday in which Madoff was required to find two additional co-signers to vouch for him.
For those following another case close to home, Shlomo Rubashkin of Agriprocessors fame is still languishing in jail unable to convince an "impartial? judge to grant him bail. A hundred co-signers would step forward in a minute and dozens of friends and family have already offered their homes as collateral in return for Rubashkin's release. The Judge has so far deemed Rubashkin a flight risk for his potential misuse of the "right of return law? an Israeli law granted to any Jew who wishes to immigrate to Israel. This inexplicable ruling has never been used in such settings according to legal observers.
Rubashkin's legal team (reported here) had repeatedly offered an overwhelming bail conditions package to convince the judge, including 24 hour armed guards with arresting capabilities, ankle bracelet monitoring, and significant financial guarantees to ensure Rubashkin remains in the States, but to no avail. Many in the legal community have expressed their worst fears that this unprecedented mis-application of the "right of return law? against a Jewish defendant, originally designed to protect the life of the persecuted, is now being used by a Judge as a means to deny a Jew their legal rights under the US constitution. We at YWN believe this may be the worst form of reverse discrimination we've ever seen.
Let us understand what is happening here in the United States of America in the year 2008.
It appears, one Mr. Madoff the architect of the scheme that has financially ruined hundreds of families and has potentially wiped out numerous not -for- profit's has been set free conditionally, while the same purported legal justice system albeit in Iowa, refuses to allow bail to a identifiably religious defendant in a far less destructive legal entanglement. It appears Madoffs swindle is so huge it makes the Enron heist look like childs play. Why the double standard?
Is Rubashkin being held to the highest unattainable standard to use him as an example?
The misuse of legal authority and the miscarriage of justice is simply too stark to ignore.
Where is the outrage from our community?
How can American Jurist Prudence be so starkly different in Iowa vs. NY?
YWN calls on the entire Jewish community to create a firestorm of support for the terrible situation the Rubashkin family finds themselves in.
We do not cast judgment for or against in the Postville case, that is for the courts to decide. However, on the merits of the case and with compassion, we simply call on reasonable people of mercy and honor, to protest the flagrant abuse of power currently being imposed in Iowa. Irrefutable history has show, that accused murderers, rapists and thieves received bail for far worse heinous crimes. It is outrageous and un- American to deny Shlomo Rubashkin his legal right of bail simply because of his religion. Free Rubashkin.
http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_11301666?source=most_viewed
Fry's Electronics is famously known for its obsessive attention to store security, carefully checking departing customers at the door and taking other stringent steps to prevent the pilferage rampant in the retail industry.
So how was former executive and Palo Alto resident Ausaf Umar Siddiqui, according to federal charges, able to defraud the retailer and some of its vendors out of $65 million in a years-long kickback scheme?
More details emerged Tuesday — from a complaint filed in federal court and interviews with employees and ex-employees of Fry's — that paint a picture of a once-trusted executive whose rise to the highest levels of the company apparently put him above suspicion.
Lakewood's version of UOJ:
http://lakewoodscoop.blogspot.com/
Rabbi Lipshutz has a point in some instances. There are some bloggers whose goal is to separate Jews from Torah. But as a general principal I believe he is wrong. In any case I don’t think he is talking about the 'skeptic' blogs.
These are dangerous blogs. I agree with R' Gil about that. But you know as well as I do that Rabbi Lipshutz isn't talking about that.
He is talking about blogs like mine who tend to criticize his community. And FWIW I have no clue if he was addressing me personlly.
In fact I'll go out on a limb and say he probably wasn't criticizing me personally. He was probably criticizing bolgs like UOJ, or Failed Messiah. I have criticized them too, especially UOJ.
But I do not for a moment believe that he is anything but L'Shma. My criticsm of him is more about the way he does it than about the actual criticsm itself. (and FWIW UOJ has been pretty harsh in his criticism of me!)
Look you want to unbookmark me? Feel free. No one is making you read my blog.
As for my crtique of Rabbi Lipshutz... it's very simple. in my very considered opinion he is very wrong here... as he is about many other things he writes about.
But that it isn't why I criticzed him. He has a right to be wrong. He has a right to his views - wrong though they may be.
It's about the divisive way he writes about others. That's what he did here. And his poison pen required a response!
Harry Maryles | 12.25.08 - 4:37 pm | #
Harry said:
But I do not for a moment believe that he is anything but L'Shma. My criticsm of him is more about the way he does it than about the actual criticsm itself. (and FWIW UOJ has been pretty harsh in his criticism of me!)
*
Thanks Harry -- I appreciate your positive take on my intent. You are absolutely correct -- my intent is to fix the problem and enhance Yiddishkeit - by getting the maximum amount of attention to the problems that we all suffer from.
And if organizations have been proven to be viciously derelict in their duties, and if rabbis have been complicit in serious crimes, I'll shout it from the rooftops until they will have no choice but to address the many crimes disguised as daas Torah.
For years I've tried the "nice guy" approach and it went nowhere.
I would/will NOT change one iota of my approach --- because it has proven to be the only way to get the job done. You don't have to like me --- like the results.
Regards,
UOJ
At a hearing Wednesday in New York state court, J. Ezra Merkin, the chairman of lender GMAC who runs funds that were invested with Bernard Madoff, was enjoined from concealing or destroying any documents related to Mr. Madoff.
Mr. Madoff was arrested for allegedly carrying out a massive fraud scheme that stretched back for decades and ...
Pinny Lipschitz compares bloggers to Misyavnim? Well, I already compared him, Avi Shafran and their ilk to Amalek. These hypocrites continuously use the same medium as the "evil bloggers" to spew their venom and to attempt cover up after cover up for the Establishment. When the entire Jewish community was in an uproar this past summer due to the Rubashkin scandal, these Amalekites attempted (fruitlessly) to cool off the waters and to legitimize the fraudulent hechsherim of Weissmandl and the OU. Demagoguery? The Yated, Hamodia, YWN and Cross Currents are the epitome of demagoguery. The propaganda and censored "news" that they propagate makes Al Jazeera look like Slate. It's about time these "mouthpieces" get muzzled and put in their place. You can add the likes of Menachem Lubinsky (shameless shill for Rubashkin, until they stopped paying him), David Mandel and Marvin Schick to this bunch. And don't even get me started on how they've used their "power of the pen" to silence the victims of sexual abuse and cool off those waters.
Here's an excerpt from Lipschitz' rambling invective:
In today’s day and age, Yevanim hide behind the power of the pen, the web, blogs and populist demagoguery to attack us. Misyavnim offer wild accusations to back up their unfounded charges. They spare no effort to vilify and castigate us, as if they were paragons of virtue. The more growth our community experiences, the more scorn the misyavnim heap upon us. It is interesting to note that no one has analyzed the religiosity of Bernard Madoff in an attempt to smear all who serve G-d as he does, or doesn’t.
Just imagine if it was a chassidishe Yid or a Lakewood resident who had robbed good people, charities and banks of billions of dollars. There isn’t enough newsprint available or gigabytes of memory to contain the invective that would be flowing in our direction, vilifying every frum Yid and blaming one man’s thievery on our way of life and value system.
But since he wasn’t on the board of black hat yeshivos, and he mostly robbed the endowment funds of more enlightened charities, nobody dares insinuate that the hedonistic life he led and enabled had anything to do with the evil that lurked inside of the heart of that man.
If Madoff was a chassidishe yid, yes the blogs will be over him. Why shouldn't they be? Would their be a bigger chillul hashem? It's enough of a chillul hashem that he is a Jew. If Madoff was a hedonist, then what he did should be expected. However, when the "frum" hypocrites like Nat Schlesinger, David Schick, the Jacobowitzes, the Rubashkins, Leib Pinter, et al, rob and cheat, their chillul hashem is magnified a million times more. Read what Rav Shimon Schwab wrote years ago about "frum" people and white collar crime. Besides, who is "vilifying every frum yid" because of the actions of these crooks? The only ones being villified are the criminals themseleves, and their defenders, such as Lipschitz and Shafran.
Instead of condemning this behavior, they all become ACLU lawyers and try to defend the indefensible. Why? Because these criminals wear hats and beards. Why doesn't Shafran write another "Missing Ethic" article to defend Madoff. like he did for Rubashkin? What happened to "innocent until proven guilty?" Why doesn't Lipschitz take a three hour tour of Bernard Madoff Associates offices, like he did for Rubashkin? I'm sure Ol' Bernie will cover his expenses and the other whiskered cows, as long as they all write wonderful things about him. Why not? It's obvious. Who's the true hypocrite, Pinny? Who are the real Misyavnim in this story, or better yet, Amalekim?
Lip-shits and Shaf-Also-ran should drive up to Otisville and report whether the Jewish populace is a majority of Made-off$ or actually Black-hatters who insist on Glatt, Daf-Yomi, and have separate Sefard, Ashkenaz Minyanim.
And Pinny, check out Frankel's Shul; Black Hatters everyone.
Its maddening how beyond the pale Lipshitz's rant is.
Where was the Yated on the ikkrim --- kashrus in the hands of criminals, and children in the hands of child rapists and their enablers, including his rosh yeshiva, Shmuel Kaminetzky.
It's no wonder at all that progress is almost impossible with crackheads like you Pinny --- yes, I'm talking to you.
You could do some good here -- but you choose not to --- for shame!
The funny, sad, and hypocritical thing is that Lip-shits had a full-page pictorial (his picture sitting at the golden EIB microphone, Black Borsalino atop his head)and interview last week in his Yated with the great Rush Limbaugh in Rush' Florida studio.
Would Rush have let you in if he knew you were an enabler of Pedophiles and fraudsters? The "ehrlich" Borsalino fits better on Rush' head than on yours.
Pinny appeals to Rush because the Yated comes across as a right wing newspaper. Meanwhile, when he defends criminals like Rubashkin and refuses to report about other white collar criminals and rabbinical child molesters, Pinny is more aligned with leftists like Lynn Stewart and the ACLU.
The fools never learn. Two years ago it was the maskilim --- now its the misyavnim! Not them, not the animals they protect, not the rabbis accomplices, not the Agudah, not the OU, not Belsky, it's all our fault for all these crimes.
Yes --- it is our fault for waiting so long to expose them!
GET OVER IT Pinny, we have more readers and followers than any of you losers.
Yudel Posts a Quote From Rav Aaron Z"L...
"The truth must be heard,
Even if the public doesn't like the sound of it.
Whatever the circumstances, regardless of the consequences.
The truth must be stated-loudly, clearly & unequivocally".
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123007817817731685.html
Clinton's Donor List Raises Lots of Questions
What I've been tying to discern about the Clinton Foundation is why -- aside from the annual fancy party in New York -- foreign governments, other foundations and charities have given money to fund what they already do themselves.
I understand why McDonald's of central Arkansas would make a contribution to Mr. Clinton's present career. He has spent so much cash on Big Macs over three decades that they actually owe it to him. But I fail to grasp why the "I Won't Cheat" foundation gave a donation to Bill's charity. He isn't exactly an ideal poster boy.
There were four United Way contributions, one from the national outfit, three from local branches. Since when is the Clinton Foundation one of the approved charities of the United Way?
Then there are more serious questions about operating charities. What was the purpose of a contribution by the National Opera of Paris? Or of hospitals themselves in strained circumstances, like Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn and Arkansas Children's Hospital?
The University of Cambridge and Liverpool University in the United Kingdom threw into the pot from the other side of the pond. American universities like Tufts, Columbia, Georgetown, Iowa State, Texas, Brown, Rensselaer Polytechnic, UCLA and its school of public health all gave, plus the University of Judaism with a whopping sum between $100,000 and $250,000. (Is Bill Clinton now supporting studies in theology?) Do these educational institutions have such deep pockets to share with Bill Clinton's ego?
On the donor list are also the names of the charities we all give to generically: Human Rights Watch (well, not me), Feed the Children, and the Hunger Project. The foundation also receives funding from the International Bank for Recovery and Development of the World Bank, and the World Health Organization. They have their own, far-reaching projects. Why would they give cash to charitable work for which Mr. Clinton is at most a matchmaker?
There's a certain looseness here that spreads downwards: District 1199 of the Service Employees International Union gave old comrade Bill somewhere in the range of half a million bucks. And then spreads upwards, so to speak: Citi gave him from $1 million to $5 million. Perhaps Citi's gift was just a pledge. In that case, is Treasury now paying up?
Many are focused on the contributions of the Arab states. Mr. Clinton started his charity in 1997 with four years to go in his presidency, a period when no American law provided for the most elementary public reporting of the enterprise. Still, the fact that Saudi Arabia is on the donor list comes as no surprise.
What we now know is that Mr. Clinton was indiscriminating when it came to accepting cash from all sorts of countries. He took money from poor countries like Jamaica, and more prosperous countries like Italy. He dipped into the Irish Aid Fund and the Swedish Postal Lottery for big money, and for small money from the Social Economic Council of the Netherlands. And then there was an especially strange source from which he schnorrered: Citgo, Hugo Chávez's oil company. Even if the revolucion didn't gain points for this, it is unseemly for an American president to ask the energy company of the Venezuelan dictatorship for spare cash.
So where did all this fund-raised money go? Wouldn't you want to know to which philanthropic undertaking the King of Saudi Arabia and the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques committed himself? This information is not in the report -- and it doesn't look like President-elect Obama has any interest in pushing for further disclosure.
http://www.nydailynews.com/money/2008/12/24/2008-12-24_worlds_richest_woman__loreal_heiress_lil.html
It's been a bad week for the world's richest woman.
Cosmetics queen Liliane Bettencourt lost a chunk of her $22.9 billion fortune in the Bernie Madoff scandal - and Europe was abuzz over a family feud in which she was accused of squandering her wealth on a society dandy 25 years her junior.
First, a French court was told that Bettencourt, the 86-year-old heir to the L'Oréal empire, had showered art, cash and property worth $1.3 billion on a Parisian artist after falling under his Svengali-like spell.
Then, in the midst of her having to prove her mental fitness, it was revealed Wednesday that she was the first investor in a fund managed by Rene-Thierry Magon de la Villehuchet, who committed suicide in Manhattan on Tuesday after losing $1.4 billion to Madoff.
A great lady philanthropist and civic deity in the Brooke Astor mode, Bettencourt had placed a nest egg of an unspecified amount with LUXALPHA SICAV-American Selection, the Luxembourg-based investment fund for the European elite run by the 65-year-old French aristocrat.
De la Villehuchet handed the cash over to Madoff, and it promptly vanished into his $50 billion Ponzi scheme. Powerless to recoup the immense sums Bettencourt and Rothschild family members had entrusted to him, De la Villehuchet took sleeping pills and slit his wrists in his Madison Ave. office Monday night.
As the spotlight shifted to Access International Advisors, his$3 billion hedge fund, and LUXALPHA, its $1.4 billion subsidiary, which was 100% invested with Madoff, there were other developments in the case:
- Business colleagues described the excruciating guilt De la Villehuchet experienced after the scandal broke - and how they were unable to console him.
Leon Cooperman, who runs the Omega Advisors hedge fund, said he told him, "Listen, people make mistakes. ... You are not at fault."
- Medical examiners did an autopsy but will await the results of toxicology tests to announce the cause of death.
- Claudine de la Villehuchet, the dead man's wife, told the family's longtime gardener that her husband had planned in advance for the disposition of his remains.
"He's going to be cremated and have his ashes spread over a body of water," said Cosimo Ferraro. "That was his request. ... He loved the water, and he loved sailing.
Meanwhile, the Bettencourt blood feud-cum-soap opera became topic No. 1 in European salons after the grande dame broke more than two decades of public silence.
She went on the attack this week in the French press, calling her daughter, Francoise Bettencourt-Meyers, 55, "very foolish and slightly idiotic."
Charging "abuse of frailty," Bettencourt-Meyers had sued her mother's frequent companion, Francois-Marie Banier, a 61-year-old Latin Quarter artist and celebrity photographer who pals around with Mick Jagger and Johnny Depp.
She claimed her mother had given Banier $1.3 billion worth ofgifts - including Picassos, Matisses and Mondrians, plus cash, property and life insurance. The daughter also claimed Bettencourt's facilities were impaired and that she'd been exploited by an unscrupulous poseur.
Bettencourt struck back, saying she never wanted to see her daughter again and denying she was frittering away the family fortune, which her father, Eugene Schueller, built with the creation of L'Oréal in 1909.
Banier is no Svengali or fortune hunter, she said. He is a close family friend who helped her when her 88-year-old husband, André, died last year.
"I find this whole affair completely idiotic. It is a waste of energy, very disagreeable, very distressing," she told Le Journal du Dimanche in Paris.
She admitted lavishing Banier with pricey goodies.
"What I gave to Francois-Marie, although it is a large sum, is really not that much when put in proportion," she said.
http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/images/ED-AI757_bw1224_DV_20081223142820.jpg
I hope this picture isn't what Obama has in mind for his "stimulus" package.
The Bim Bam identity.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/25/washington/25pardon.html
December 25, 2008
Pardon Lasts One Day for Man in Fraud Case
By DAVID STOUT and ERIC LICHTBLAU
WASHINGTON — President Bush changed his mind on Christmas Eve, pulling back a pardon he had extended a day earlier to a Brooklyn developer at the center of a Long Island real estate fraud case and adding a bizarre twist to the episode.
The developer, Isaac R. Toussie, who was listed Tuesday as one of the beneficiaries of the president’s constitutional power to wipe away a criminal record, is not being pardoned “based on information that has subsequently come to light,” the White House said late Wednesday afternoon.
The terse White House statement did not elaborate, but officials familiar with the case said that presidential aides — and perhaps President Bush himself — were concerned about appearances, because Mr. Toussie’s father, Robert, donated $28,500 to the Republican National Committee last April, for what apparently was his first political contribution. He also donated $2,300 to the presidential campaign of Senator John McCain.
Regardless of how Mr. Toussie is perceived by Republicans in Washington, the name of Isaac Toussie is detested by many working-class people in the New York metropolitan area. In 2001, several hundred of them sued in Federal District Court, accusing Mr. Toussie and his father of masterminding a scheme in which inexperienced or first-time buyers were promised affordable and comfortable suburban houses but instead were sold shoddily built homes in poor neighborhoods and saddled by mortgage payments that shot up surprisingly.
“The politically connected get what they want, and little people like us are just left to sink or swim,” Maxine Wilson, one of the homeowners, said Tuesday after Mr. Toussie’s pardon was announced, according to The Daily News. “Thanks to the president for the worst Christmas gift you could have ever given us.”
Mr. Toussie, now 37, pleaded guilty in 2001 to using false documents to get mortgages insured by the Department of Housing and Urban Development and in 2002 to mail fraud, admitting that he had persuaded officials in Suffolk County to overpay for land. It appeared Tuesday that Mr. Toussie would have his record expunged of his crimes, which resulted in five months in prison, three years of supervised release conditioned on five months of home detention and a $10,000 fine.
But the White House’s announcement on Wednesday noted that the United States pardon attorney, Ronald L. Rodgers, had not made a recommendation on the Toussie case, and that President Bush believed he “should have an opportunity” to do so.
It was clear from the timing and wording of the announcement that there had been major confusion or miscommunication, or both, within the White House bureaucracy over the Toussie case. “Quite remarkable,” Henry E. Mazurek of Brooklyn, one of Mr. Toussie’s lawyers, said Wednesday evening, before a meeting with his client to discuss what to do next, if anything.
Another of Mr. Toussie’s lawyers, Bradford A. Berenson of Washington, said his client was pleased that a pardon was initially announced Tuesday and held out hope that it might still come true. “Mr. Toussie looks forward to the pardon attorney’s expeditious review of the application,” Mr. Berenson said.
The episode is particularly embarrassing for Fred F. Fielding, the White House counsel, who is mentioned by title but not by name in the White House statement, which said pointedly that “the counsel to the president reviewed the application and believed, based on the information known to him at the time, that it was a meritorious application. He so advised the president, who accepted the recommendation.”
The statement did not explain how Mr. Fielding came to believe the petition should be granted.
Under Justice Department guidelines, the pardon attorney generally does not even consider a petition for a pardon until five years from the time a defendant has completed his sentence. Mr. Toussie’s request would not have come up for review until next May, although he submitted his petition in August.
“We had not even started processing the application because we knew it did not fit our guidelines,” one Justice Department official said Wednesday, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the political sensitivity of the issue. Nor had the Justice Department given the White House any hint of where it stood, the official said.
Administration officials and experts in pardon law said they were not aware of a prior instance of a president’s withdrawing a pardon after it was announced. “This is extraordinary,” said Margaret Colgate Love, who served as pardon attorney at the Justice Department in the 1990s.
The Justice Department official maintained that Mr. Toussie would have no grounds to argue that the president could not take back a pardon. “A pardon isn’t official until the warrant is received by the person who requested it, and that hasn’t happened yet,” the official said.
The Toussie episode comes as more lawyers appear to be going directly to the White House for consideration of pardons, rather than through Justice Department channels, according to people involved in the process. The most notorious recent instance came in 2001, when President Bill Clinton pardoned the fugitive financier Marc Rich, even though the Justice Department had not offered a formal recommendation.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2008/12/25/2008-12-25_toussies_trail_a_doozie_bush_missed_half.html
The mystery is how the administration ignored Toussie and his father's background - a tale of payoff and corruption allegations spanning more than 45 years - in pardoning the son for a massive housing scam.
White House officials did an about-face after they learned - by reading it in the Daily News - the father of scamster Isaac Toussie donated $28,500 to the Republican National Committee.
The rags-to-riches story began with Toussie's father, Robert, who clawed his way out of poverty to build empires in the clothing and real estate businesses.
Although the Toussie family record is filled with suits and scam allegations, as well as the fraud conviction that drew the pardon, it is also a story of triumph and contradiction.
Robert and the now-37-year-old Isaac enjoyed the high life, complete with Rolls-Royces, Bentleys and Jaguars.
Robert Toussie, 67, has made numerous charitable contributions, including $50,000 to New York-Presbyterian Hospital Weill Cornell.
The Toussies seem to win as many suits as they lose, prevailing against then-Attorney General Eliot Spitzer in an alleged land sale fraud case, among many others.
It all started with Robert Toussie, who was 7 when he began buying candy wholesale and selling it for a profit to his friends.
At 10, he had a paper route, and at 15, he graduated as valedictorian of his high school class.
Instead of going to college, he joined his older brother in the baby clothes and children's wear businesses - and soon became a millionaire.
From there it was on to business school and then real estate development.
Beginning in 1970, Toussie - later joined by his son - began buying thousands of parcels of land for development on Long Island, mostly in Suffolk County.
He bought the famed 39-acre Chandler estate in Mount Sinai for $500,000 in 1997 and sold it to Suffolk County for $5 million three years later.
That sale triggered charges of collusion with two Suffolk County officials and investigations by Spitzer and the federal government. Robert Toussie emerged unscathed.
In all, the Toussies have developed more than 5,000 parcels of land in an assemblage that reads like a conductor shouting out station stops on the Long Island Rail Road: Amityville, Hauppauge, Port Jefferson Station, Bellport, Center Moriches, Mastic, Manorville.
The big suits against the Toussies involve charges of inflated prices and misleading advertising for some of the Long Island developments and others on Staten Island.
A look at the ads, which appeared in metropolitan area newspapers including the Daily News, shows that with the hindsight of recent mortgage scandals, they are, indeed, too good to be true.
A 1999 ad offers single-family detached homes with backyards on Long Island and townhouses on Staten Island for "only $1,000 down and $999 per month."
"Includes home, land, principal and interest," the ad reads.
Those ads are part of an ongoing class action suit by more than 400 families alleging that the Toussies deceived them into buying overpriced, badly built homes.
It was brought seven years ago in federal court in Islip.
The Toussies have won preliminary rulings in that case, which is pending.
TOUSSIE TIMELINE
1941: Robert Toussie born in Brooklyn to a family of Syrian immigrants.
1956: Toussie graduates at 15 from Lafayette H.S.; joins brother peddling baby clothes and makes a fortune.
1959: Refuses to register for the draft, claiming he's a pacifist.
1961: The brothers buy and rejuvenate eight clothing companies. At 20, Toussie is a millionaire.
1966: Toussie enrolls at Columbia University; goes on to earn an MBA.
1969: Toussie convicted of draft evasion, beats rap in Supreme Court.
1970: Marries and goes into the home development business. A son, Isaac, is born a year later.
1973: Feds probe Toussie for shoddy construction and misleading advertisements. No charges brought.
1993: Isaac Toussie joins business.
1999: Isaac Toussie charged with mail fraud and lying to federal agencies in a massive housing scam and fraudulent land deal. Pleads guilty; gets five months in jail, five months home detention and a $10,000 fine.
2001: Toussies sued by 400 black and Hispanic families who charge they were duped into buying overpriced, shoddy homes; suit pending.
2004: Robert Toussie charged with failing to file income tax returns in a timely manner. Gets probation.
2008: President Bush pardons Isaac Toussie in housing scam case. Rescinds it after Daily News reports Robert Toussie gave $28,500 to the Republican National Committee in April.
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/ny-liauto26,0,6820462,print.story
Car plows into Hanukkah party, injures 14
BY KEITH HERBERT AND JOSEPH MALLIA
9:08 AM EST, December 26, 2008
An Atlantic Beach psychiatrist was behind the wheel of a sport utility vehicle that plowed into a children's Hannukah party Thursday, injuring more than a dozen children and adults, Nassau police said Friday.
Theodore Saretsky, 76, a psychiatrist who is an adjunct faculty member at Adelphi University, was treated at Mercy Hospital for minor injuries and released Thursday, police said.
He is the registered owner of the 2007 BMW X3 that sped through the storefront of the Chanukah Wonderland in Woodmere around 2:45pm on Thursday, sending 14 people to area hospitals, police said.
Two children were in critical but stable condition in the pediatric intensive care unit at Nassau University Medical Center, according to a hospital spokeswoman.
The other victims were taken to area hospitals including Winthrop-University Hospital in Mineola, police said Thursday.
The investigation was ongoing but preliminary evidence indicates that Saretsky did not have a medical problem but made a claim regarding the SUV's accelerator, said Det. Lt. Kevin Smith of Nassau police.
Smith said the crash was being treated as an accident and that Saretsky may not face criminal charges.
The SUV crashed through plate-glass windows into a Woodmere storefront where dozens of children attended a Hanukkah festival Thursday night, then plowed through the crowded party room running over children and their families, Nassau police said.
Fourteen people were injured at the Chanukah Wonderland party, half of them children, including an 18-month-old, sending them to three hospitals for treatment. The oldest injured person was about 40.
The room was suddenly in an uproar as the BMW burst in and the air was filled with shards of broken glass and debris from the windows and walls, Nassau Police Det. Lt. Kevin Smith said
"People are running in all different directions. There was a lot of chaos at the scene," Smith said.
About 100 people were at the festival, which Smith described as "basically a child's party."
The 2007 BMW X3 came to rest at the far end of the party room with one victim, a man, pinned beneath it. Others at the party came to the aid of the pinned man and lifted or rolled the BMW to free him, police said.
Saretsky has been a licensed psychiatrist since 1965 and has no recent disciplinary actions taken against him. He has no criminal record and no accidents or violations on his driver's license, records show.
He and his wife, Lorelle, also a psychologist, are listed as adjunct faculty at Adelphi University's Gordon F. Derner Institute for Advanced Psychological Studies. Theodore Saretsky has been quoted numerous times in Newsday, commenting on sports psychology.
Saretsky and Adelphi officials could not be reached for comment.
'A horrible tragedy' "The operator lost control of this car. He may have made a claim that something happened with the accelerator," Smith said.
About 30 men together lifted the BMW sport utility vehicle, weighing more than 4,000 pounds, off the man who was trapped under a front tire when it came to rest, said Leo Shalamoff, owner of Pizza Pious, a kosher Italian restaurant across the street from Chanukah Wonderland. Shalamoff said he and one of his employees ran to offer aid.
Injured children were on the floor amid pieces of broken glass, metal and wood from window frames and walls, Shalamoff said. He and his employee went to the back wall of the shop where the SUV had trapped a man.
"We saw the man under the car. It was terrible. It was difficult. There was maybe 30 men picking up the car but suddenly we did it. We pulled him out and helped him to the ambulance," Shalamoff said. "There was blood all over."
One of the injured was taken from the scene by helicopter.
The victims were taken to Nassau University Medical Center, Mercy Hospital and Winthrop Hospital. Several are in serious condition, injured by flying debris, flying glass and blunt force trauma, Smith said.
John Broder, vice president of external affairs for Winthrop University Hospital, said three children younger than 5 are being treated in the hospital's pediatric unit. One of the children is in fair condition, while two are in serious condition, he said.
Rabbi Heshy Blumstein of Young Israel of Hewlett and his wife, Mimi, visited some of the injured at Winthrop.
"It was a horrible tragedy," Blumstein said.
Still, the fact that there were many survivors means "there are miracles all over," Mimi Blumstein said.
The driver, who was described as being in shock, was also hospitalized.
Faivish Pewzner, who said he was from the Chabad congregation, emerged last evening from the pediatric intensive care unit at NUMC with his wife. He said two children were in the unit with broken bones.
"Thank God, they're recovering nicely," said his wife, who did not want to give her name. "Nothing but a few broken bones."
The 3-year-old brother of one of the victims was in Winthrop Hospital with major injuries, Pewzner said. "He needs facial surgery," he said. "Poor family -- the mother and father are both in separate hospitals, dealing with trauma," she said.
Yan Kelewitz said his wife and children were in the room at the time of the crash, and that his wife saw the car enter the building.
A couple bringing pizzas to the affected families paused briefly in the NUMC emergency room before heading into the hospital. "It's horrible," the man said.
Investigating the crash
The incident was being viewed initially as an accident, pending an investigation by First Squad detectives and an accident investigation team, Smith said.
The 2:45 p.m. accident took place at the northeast corner of Franklin Place and Broadway. Witnesses said the car approached a red light at the intersection and then veered to the left, into a parked Honda Pilot, knocking the parked car onto the sidewalk, police said.
The BMW then went through the glass, across the party room and ended up at the back of the building against a wall, where it "comes to rest after running over several people," Smith said.
A Chabad-Lubavitch rabbi said parties at Chanukah Wonderland have been taking place for about 10 years. Children go there to learn about the Jewish holy days.
At around 8 p.m. more than 50 people were at the Chanukah Wonderland cleaning it, removing tables, games, craft supplies and paint. A line of men said evening prayers inside the room, with tire marks on the carpet nearby.
Rabbi Zalman Wolowik, director of Chabad-Lubavitch of the Five Towns, said counselors will be provided for anyone who needs support.
There was a Sam Toussie who gave the infamous interview to New York Magazine years ago about the wealth in the SY community.
No one would talk to him anymore. There were rumors that he was put in cherem and he later died in a fire in his home.
http://www.imageusa.com/index.php?option=com_fireboard&Itemid=26&func=view&catid=3&id=2123
His daughter wrote this letter to Image Magazine denying that her father even had anyone upset at him (baloney) and saying he duped by the reporter.
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/02_40/b3802107.htm
In some cases, the trail of corruption leads all the way to homebuilders who lure buyers with instant financing. In hindsight, says Maxine Wilson, a law firm administrator, the seamless loan process should have tipped her off that the house she bought in a New York City suburb in 1997 had problems: "It was way too easy. When the loan manager walks into a builder's office, takes your application, and guarantees that you're going to be approved, something is wrong."
Now, Wilson says her home is sinking. The foundation is cracked, and she has mildew in her attic--where the bathroom vents. Wilson bought the house for $140,000 from father-and-son builders Isaac and Robert Toussie. Two years later, it was appraised for $15,000 less in one of the hottest U.S. housing markets. Wilson and 200 others filed a suit in federal court against the Toussies, but it was thrown out on Sept. 20 after failing to qualify as a class action. In May, 2001, Issac Toussie pleaded guilty to fraud in federal court on Long Island for illegally obtaining federal housing loans. On Sept. 25, Robert Toussie's lawyer, Richard C. Hamburger of Hamburger, Maxson & Yaffe LLP in Melville, N.Y., said his client is so confident of the quality of his houses that he will offer to buy back those of Wilson and the two other lead plaintiffs and pay their moving expenses and $5,000.
Hazita!
Major chilul! That's the last time I say mabrouk to the Toussies! They make us SYs look like a bunch of kulbs.
Rabbi Lipshutz still thinks that it's 1968. And we're still all in Pirchei licking our lollipops and singing "Toras Hashem Temimma".
Well, Rabbi Lipshutz it's 2008 and your paper never mentioned one word about yeshiva torah temimmah or the scandal pertaining to your friend, neighbor and chavrusa who ran a treifa and neveila butcher shop in monsey for 10 years.
They are insinuating on the Lakewood Scoop blog that Butch Epstein was angry at Rav Salomon and broke into his house by climbing through a window.
Right on target
https://mail.google.com/mail/?source=navclient-ff#trash/11e6f1607a65d56e
I remember hearing that Sam Toussie was put in cherem from Syrians at the time.
I can tell you that after NY Magazine published their Toussie abetted piece about the wealth of the community, every crook within 1000 miles headed down to Kings Highway to rob the homes. There were several violent episodes in broad daylight - home invasions. In one case, thugs armed with baseball bats almost murdered some young teenage kids who were home alone. The kids managed to escape after a couple of "grand slams" just missed their heads, breaking open walls.
They have had the 24 hour armed security patrols ever since.
The OU also stands for molesting children.
http://www.jewishpress.com/pageroute.do/37489
Rabbi Weinreb likes to tell a story to underline the OU's reach and reputation, which extends to the highest reaches of the U.S. government.
Meeting then-deputy White House chief of staff for policy Josh Bolten two days after Purim in 2002, Rabbi Weinreb and the OU's Diament presented him with mishloach manos. In turn Bolten, on behalf of President Bush, offered the OU officials mishloach manos in the form of M&M's candies.
Told that the M&M's box was specially packaged in a white container bearing the presidential seal, Rabbi Weinreb pointed to the OUD on the box and proudly said, "It also has my seal."
Rabbi Weinreb then jokingly assured Bolten that the D next to OU "does not stand for Democrat."
Months later, Rabbi Weinreb met the president himself, who, upon hearing that Rabbi Weinreb represented the OU, said, "I know you guys. You're the ones on the M&M's."
Rabbi Weinreb then reflexively recited to the president many of the myriad programs the OU offers in addition to its kosher supervision.
When Rabbi Weinreb next met President Bush about a year later and the OU was mentioned, the president said, "I know - you are not just M&Ms."
The OU's goal, according to Rabbi Weinreb, is to ensure that the entire Jewish community knows that "Yes, we are the standard-bearer of kashrut but we are also so much more. We're not just M&M's."
Murray,
If you have any more of that rotting babaganosh that you threw through Leib Pinter's front window, head down to Toussie's house on East 5th.
Betesh, are you the only SY that the Yated calls a "Torah askan", or did Lip-Itchy-Shitz get the Toussies in too?
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2008/12/27/2008-12-27_photo_surfaces_of_president_bush_with_fa.html
Check out this picture of Toussie giving mabrouk to President Bush.
UOJ,
This is from Harry's blog quoting from gil student.
The chief Mashgiach, rug salesman and VANTZ in Cental Jersey is basically issuing an order banning kids of bloggers from yeshivos. Nothing about banning kids whose fathers are sexual molesters of little boys !! This is WAR !!
Rabbi Student makes a valid comparison to telephones. They can be used for extremely bad purposes including such things as phone sex… or the promotion of heresy. Just to cite one example: A phone call to one of those 900 phone sex numbers can very easily be made by an adolescent in the privacy of his own bedroom. Should we ban telephones? No Gadol would say that.
There was one line in his essay that really troubles me. And it is very telling about the extent to which those who would ban bloggers are willing to go:
The mashgiach in Lakewood said that there should be no room in yeshivos for the children of bloggers. I kid you not.
The Mashgiach would deny my son entry to his - or any – Yeshiva. This is Torah?! This is what the Mashgiach feels is beneficial to the Torah world?! ...that the sins of the fathers should impede the education and Chinuch of their children who are in no way responsible for what their fathers or mothers do?! Who is he really punishing here? Not me. Not even my son. But Klal Yisroel itself.
By the way,i found out recently that Matisyahu Solomon is the defacto mashgiach/rosh yeshiva of yeshiva torah temimma.
Lip Margulies wanted Solomon for torah temimma but Lakewood gave him a better deal. However he still comes to torah temmimah once a month (or once every 2 months) to give a shiur. And is considered to be part of the torah temmimah staff.
http://www.attorneygeneral.gov/press.aspx?id=4166
Attorney General Corbett announces charges against Berks County kosher poultry plant, former plant owner and plant operator
Mayer Grunbaum
David Weiszer
HARRISBURG - The owner of a former Berks County kosher poultry plant and the pretreatment plant operator were charged today by agents from the Attorney General's Environmental Crimes Section with discharging industrial waste including poultry blood, feathers, hearts and gizzards into a Schuylkill River tributary.
Attorney General Tom Corbett identified the defendants as Mayer Grunbaum, 48, of Brooklyn, NY, his former business, G&G Poultry, 1100 Lincoln Road, Birdsboro, and the businesses' pretreatment plant operator, David Weiszer, 59, of Allentown.
Click on thumbnail for larger image
Corbett said that the investigation began in December 2007 based on a referral from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) regarding the illegal discharge of poultry waste into nearby waters.
According to the criminal complaint, industrial waste from G&G's wastewater pre-treatment plant is required to be discharged into the sanitary sewer collection system owned and operated by Exeter Township.
The charges state that on 16 separate occasions between May 2006 and January 2008, Grunbaum or Weiszer permitted industrial waste generated from G&G's processing operations to be discharged into an unnamed tributary of the Schuylkill River.
Corbett said that the water was allegedly laden with poultry parts including; fat, grease, feathers, hearts, gizzards, feet, poultry blood and viscera.
"Our environmental laws were created to protect and preserve Pennsylvania's tremendous natural resources for all to enjoy," Corbett said. "No matter how small the stream, these waterways and tributaries are not dumping grounds for waste."
According to an Aquatic Biology Investigation, there was a harmful impact to the Schuylkill tributary from G&G's untreated process water discharge.
"Over the course of two years the pollution of one small unnamed tributary ultimately affected species and vegetation that grow and live in the Schuylkill River," Corbett said.
Grunbaum, Weiszer and G&G Poultry are all charged with 16 counts of industrial waste discharges, 16 counts of prohibition against other pollutions and 16 counts of unlawful conduct. Grunbaum and Weiszer are also charged with three counts of criminal conspiracy.
Corbett said that Grunbaum and Weiszer face a maximum penalty of 255 years in prison and $527,000 fine.
http://www.capecodonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081221/NEWS/812210327
http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/sponsorad.php?ad=campagudah
CHeck out this ad for the upcoming Camp Agudah Fresser reunion at Chaim Berlin's Montag Hall.
Are any of the organizers complicit in the Kolko cover up?
Shimshy Sherer
Wielgus brothers
Tzvi Grey
Josh Pruzansky
Avi Schoenbrun
Motty Steiger
Shloimie Templeman
http://gersionappel.files.wordpress.com/2008/12/gersion-appel-biography.pdf
R' Gershon Appel was niftar the other week.
http://variationsonatheme.typepad.com/
http://variationsonatheme.typepad.com/
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