Jewish Liberty and the Striking of Roe v. Wade – Violations of Jewish Liberty that Were Foreseeable

Note to reader:

This post is the entire text of a Forward article, being reprinted in its entirety without permission of the Forward. I believe it to be of utter urgency; and if the Forward tells me to take it down, I will oblige.

The great irony here is that ultra-Orthodox Jewish leaders have endorsed the elections of the very officials, including Donald Trump, who made the destruction of 50 years of US legal precedent regarding a woman’s right to an abortion possible. Many liberal and secular Jews saw this coming. That the ultra-Orthodox religious community and its leaders, including Agudath Israel, among many did not have the foresight to understand that their support of conservative leaders would eventually come to bite us all, is dumbfounding.

Striking down Roe v. Wade will violate Jewish religious liberty

Orthodox Jewish organizations are running out of time to organize our political power and communal voice in defense of abortion laws that allow us to keep our faith.

By Ephraim ShermanMay 03, 2022

“A woman who had desperately wanted to get pregnant ended up having to have an abortion.

This woman, who I know well, told me her story through tears but without hyperbole or exaggeration. 

She and her husband had tried to conceive for three years before she finally became pregnant. Everything was going smoothly until 18 weeks into the pregnancy, when the woman’s water broke and contractions started, stopping the development of the baby’s lungs in the absence of amniotic fluid. 

An ultrasound additionally showed that the woman’s uterus had become infected, and that she could die if the nonviable fetus was not removed. Thankfully, once they did so, the infection cleared and this woman was able to have a son a few years later.

The woman told me this story the morning after a draft ruling was leaked from the Supreme Court. If adopted as law, it would have sentenced this woman and countless others to death.

When this woman’s fetus was removed to save her life, the fetus still had a heartbeat. Such an abortion would become illegal in several states if Roe is overturned.

Abortions happen regularly in Jewish communities, even Orthodox ones, but often go undiscussed. Jewish law allows for abortion in many cases, and requires it if the mother’s life is in danger.

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This ruling is the culmination of a decadeslong political organizing campaign by Christian conservatives, many of whom believe that abortion is murder, even if the procedure is done to save the life of the mother or in the very early stages of pregnancy. 

Republican politicians since 1973 have used the promise of banning abortion to get Christian voters out to the polls, and this has been key to many of the GOP’s electoral successes. A 2015 poll found that 23% of anti-abortion voters would only vote for a candidate that was also anti-abortion, and Donald Trump’s 2016 victory can be largely attributed to his promises that he would only appoint Supreme Court nominees who would overturn Roe v. Wade. 

The fundamentalist Christian position is the exact opposite of the halachic approach to abortions. The success of this Republican-Christian strategy should strike terror in the hearts of frum communities across America. It should also motivate us to action.

This ruling is the culmination of a decadeslong political organizing campaign by Christian conservatives, many of whom believe that abortion is murder, even if the procedure is done to save the life of the mother or in the very early stages of pregnancy. 

Republican politicians since 1973 have used the promise of banning abortion to get Christian voters out to the polls, and this has been key to many of the GOP’s electoral successes. A 2015 poll found that 23% of anti-abortion voters would only vote for a candidate that was also anti-abortion, and Donald Trump’s 2016 victory can be largely attributed to his promises that he would only appoint Supreme Court nominees who would overturn Roe v. Wade. 

The fundamentalist Christian position is the exact opposite of the halachic approach to abortions. The success of this Republican-Christian strategy should strike terror in the hearts of frum communities across America. It should also motivate us to action.

The Orthodox Vote

The Orthodox Jewish community, in recent years, has become overwhelmingly aligned with conservative politics and politicians. Large communal organizations make efforts to remain officially nonpartisan, but it is plainly clear where the political sentiments of the majority of community members rest.

For some, U.S. policy on Israel is the deciding factor above and beyond all others, and increasingly, that has meant that Republican politicians win Orthodox communities in a landslide.

While some Orthodox views of the world are conservative ones, a stance that is against abortion in all cases would prevent many women from fulfilling Jewish law. 

Jews who live in Florida, Ohio, Texas, Georgia and other states with Republican controlled governments will soon lose access to legal abortion, even when their rabbi has told them that Jewish law requires them to receive one, thus violating their religious liberty.

Worse, Georgia and other states have already attempted to pass laws that would criminalize traveling to another state for the abortion, and even criminalize helping a woman travel to another state for one.

The law in Texas, which bans all abortions after about 4 weeks, explicitly says that religious leaders can be prosecuted for supporting and helping a woman get an abortion. 

There has been no significant national outcry from Orthodox Jewish communal organizations. We are running out of time to organize our political power and communal voice in defense of abortion laws that allow us to keep our faith. 

New York and several states have recently passed laws protecting safe and legal abortions no matter what the federal law is, but the looming threat is significant. 

Are we prepared to see parents from Brooklyn arrested by Florida State Police because they helped their daughter in Miami get the abortion her rabbi and doctor agreed she needed? Are we prepared to see rabbis arrested for making halachic rulings? Are we prepared to see Jewish doctors convicted of crimes for performing abortions?

When a woman is told the crushing news by her infertility doctor that one of her twin fetuses is thriving but one is not, and neither fetus will be born alive if the second fetus is not aborted, do we want a politician telling her rabbi and medical team that they must not intervene to save her viable fetus?

We cannot accept any of that. The time to organize and prevent this disaster was a decade ago, but the next best time to organize is now. 

When laws are proposed that could hinder circumcision, or Shabbat observance, or even public menorah lightings, every Orthodox communal organization has lobbied with passion and fire. Are the literal lives of women less important to protect?

The story I related at the beginning is a straightforward one, as far as Jewish law is concerned. The woman had a significant chance of dying if her fetus was not removed, and the fetus had zero chance of survival: abortion was the only ethical option, and also the only halachically acceptable one. 

But soon in many states, this woman’s medical team would have had to wait and let the infection worsen. Their choice would have been between risking the woman’s life or facing jail time.

That is not a world American Jews should tolerate.”

The Teitelbaum Brothers at War or Something Else? A Petri Dish for Covid-19 Spread!!

The below letter to the editor is being published at the behest of an anonymous reader who is concerned about both the spread of Covid-19 and the raging “Hatfield’s and McCoy’s” style civil war between the brothers Teitelbaum, leaders of two factions of the Satmar religious community. We have not edited it.

We are not going to provide an analysis of the long-standing war between the brothers Rabbi Aharon and Rabbi Zalman Teitelbaum. It is an existential battle that would require an archivist, an expert in Satmar religious affairs, a magician and a philosopher to explain. But the spread of Covid-19 is an almost certain and foreseeable consequence of a massive gathering of the Kiryas Joel Rabbi Aharon Teitelbaum Satmar community. Moreover, that will likely then be followed by a massive gathering of the Rabbi Zalman Teitelbaum faction, if the author of the below is correct.

We cannot independently verify why the community is being gathered.

Kiryas Joel’s Rabbi Aharon Teitelbaum could be summoning his community to excoriate local and state government on Covid-19 mask mandates, or for any number of unrelated reasons. It’s anyone’s guess.

The author sent the below along to try and save the lives of his or her religious community members. If this post helps, so be it.

Note to reader: The translation of the Hebrew in the second to last paragraph is “Anyone who has saved a life it’s as if he has saved the world.”

It is signed: “And in the name of G-d may we do and may we be successful.”

Dear friend,

Please let’s prevent more deaths of our family and friends, more than enough died the last 2 years around us! And more than enough became severely sick with strokes and heart attacks around us!

I hope you are doing alright now, and if not it’s ok nor does anybody else do alright now… But if we do something proactive we may be feeling just a bit better.

The  hasidic Whatsapp groups are ablaze with Satmar Rebbe Rabbi Aron Teitelbaum of Monroe NY ‘s latest bombshell; he called for a gathering of thousands of his Hasidim followers to give a speech. Nobody knows yet what it will be but it is a scandalous because he asked no recordings should be allowed so we know it’s going to be a very dirty hateful speech against his brothers Zalmen followers that are becoming very strong in Kiryas Joel

This is based on a collection of all the leaks and speculations on whatsapp:

Tomorrow evening Thursday night the 16 of December 2021 8;30PM thousands will gather there in the main Kiryas Joel synagogue at 12 Garfield road.

All this amidst a new variant raging and the government not enforcing any masks nor other Covid precautions on this powerful bloc vote; so prepare for many more deaths there of their old and sick from omicron the next week or 2 while this major gathering is all about infighting of the grand rabbi Aron the older brother leader will forbid to buy homes and products from the growing minority who follows his younger brother grand rabbi Zelman there will be clips and pics so i tell u about this mass infecting of thousands with Covid a day and a half in advance.

The Aroiny Kiryas Joel leaders no doubt say this gathering is for G-d and Torah so they are ready to get infected; but we all know that it’s only for hateful politics!

Please spread this notice to all who may make a difference to halt this mass genocide of our vulnerable immune compromised members that will no doubt catch it form people who will attend this super spreader. כל המקיים נפש אחת מישראל כאילו קיים עולם מלא and even if we don’t like those aroinis they all have friends in business or family who are zalies that they will kill!

We can stop this if all of us really do speak up!

ובשם ה’ נעשה ונצליח!

A Platinum Vindication – Platinum Partners and Sufficient Evidence of Fraud

As the readers of this blog may remember, the Platinum Partners fraud was widely covered in and around 2016 and 2017. The coverage included years of research on the part of a small group of very dedicated people who collaboratively amassed a treasure trove of information regarding the Platinum Partners hedge fund, its activities, the defrauding of millions of dollars in investor money, bribery, securities fraud and the list goes on.

We attended hearings on the frauds related to Black Elk Energy in 2019 and, by all estimation and analyses, we had the partners dead-to-rights on, at the very least, the securities fraud. And then, in what we believed to be a shocking turn of events, Judge Cogan, an altogether brilliant member of the legal community, overturned a jury verdict and acquitted one of the partners and granted the other a new trial. Overturning a jury verdict is unusual. Acquitting a convicted man made our heads turn.

The Black Elk Energy deal, while complicated and nuanced, represented a clever, if not unimaginably creative manipulation of the rights of the unsecured bondholders against the secured bondholders, allowing the Platinum Partners (unsecured bondholders) to divest Black Elk of Millions and Millions of Dollars in valuable oil assets, thereby leaving the secured investors (those same voting shareholders) with nothing. You see, once the secured property is filtered out of any company, the secured holders of debt and financial obligations are left with nothing to secure. This can, if properly directed, reduce the secured bondholders to a position below the unsecured bondholders who, in the ordinary course, would have been paid out first. However, such a vote would have required the Platinum Partners responsible for that vote to have sat down and affirmatively orchestrated such a corporate action. This could not have lacked criminal intent, particularly when David Levy (who was acquitted on those grounds) was and continues to be, one of the largest beneficiaries of the Black Elk deal.

Taking a step back in time, the takeover of control of Black Elk, which began in 2007 when Platinum began investing in the Black Elk Energy company, was a corporate move that legends are made of, a slight of hand and a measure of serendipity. The slow bleed of that company of its assets and value, by the very partners who were supposed to be acting in the best interest of the company did not go unnoticed, at least by us. It was carefully orchestrated and it had a measure of well-honed finesse.

In simple terms convincing secured shareholders to vote on a measure which was framed to them as a vote in the best interest of the company, and ultimately paved the way for the Platinum Partners to drain assets, followed a pattern and practice of corporate behavior by Platinum’s Partners, at least for anyone keeping tabs of their activities.

And yet, at the end of it all Judge Cogan ruled that David Levy lacked criminal intent and Mark Nordlicht was entitled to a new trial. Sadly, we were left bereft by the miscarriage of justice. What occurred in the years leading up to that trial was more than criminally intentional, it was very dark. What has transpired since, is astounding.

The Partners have not starved, as one would think when a company goes from having $1.7 Billions of Assets under Management to nothing (at least nothing being reported). At the end of the day, the greatest beneficiaries of that vote, were the Platinum Partners, and despite contentions to the contrary, these men got very rich off their crimes.

And while Mark Nordlicht later filed for bankruptcy protection (in and around late 2019), anyone who looks hard enough will likely find that he siphoned off his personal assets to family members and offshore accounts and is really, not impoverished. Nor, might we add, is he entitled to bankruptcy protections.

On Thursday, November 5, 2021, a three panel U.S. Appeals Court, after 9 weeks of testimony, unanimously restored the convictions of Mark Nordlicht and David Levy. In a 102-page decision, they determined that the evidence supported the conviction of Mark Nordlicht and did not support a finding of David Levy’s lacking “criminal intent.”

A little vindication goes a long way. Murray Huberfeld’s dramatically reduced sentence remains a slap in the face for his victims in the Platinum Partners fraud. Hopefully David Levy and Mark Nordlicht and their high-priced legal team will not succeed in convincing a judge that they deserve a reduced sentence. They unequivocally do not.

See below for additional reading and a copy of he decision.

U.S. appeals court restores Platinum Partners executives’ fraud convictions

NEW YORK, Nov 5 (Reuters) – A U.S. appeals court on Friday restored the fraud convictions of two former top executives at the now-defunct Platinum Partners hedge fund, saying a trial judge erred in acquitting one defendant and granting the other a new trial.

In a 102-page decision, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan said sufficient evidence supported the July 2019 jury convictions of Platinum co-founder Mark Nordlicht and co-chief investment officer David Levy.

The appeals court returned the case to U.S. District Judge Brian Cogan in Brooklyn for sentencing. Platinum was based in Manhattan and once had about $1.7 billion of assets.

Appeals Court Reinstates Convictions of Platinum Partners Executives

Hedge fund founder Mark Nordlicht and co-chief investment officer David Levy were convicted in 2019 of securities fraud and other charges

Mark Nordlicht, the founder of defunct hedge fund Platinum Partners, leaving federal court in the Brooklyn borough of New York in 2019.

The U.S. attorney’s office for the Eastern District of New York, which prosecuted the case, appealed that decision.

In Friday’s ruling, U.S. Circuit Judge Robert Sack wrote that there had been sufficient evidence for a rational jury to convict the defendants, and neither an acquittal or new trial was warranted.

“It is accordingly only in exceptional circumstances, where there is ‘a real concern that an innocent person may have been convicted,’ that a court ‘may intrude upon the jury function of credibility assessment’ and grant a [motion for a new trial],” he wrote, quoting from another case.

Lawyers for Messrs. Nordlicht and Levy didn’t respond to requests for comment.  A spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office declined to comment.

The Decision decided on November 5, 2021 by the 3 Member Appellate Panel

19-3207_opnDownload

Letter to My Readers:

24 August, 2021; updated and corrected 25 August, 2021

Dear Readers:

After much thought and reflection, I have decided to drastically diminish, if not halt posting additional information to this site. As you can see, I am still wavering on the decision, which I do not take lightly.

As most of you know. for the last 4 weeks the site has been suspended by WordPress. I have spent those weeks trying to get the site reinstated by WordPress, an endeavor that put a sour taste in my mouth about WordPress and its parent company Automatic, Inc. To make a long story short, someone submitted three fake Digital Media Takedown Notices (DMCA) all of which were facially false. WordPress, instead of investigating the notices, decided simply to suspend the site. I investigated the notices and received written confirmation that the names and numbers listed were false. WordPress, however, was having no part of reviewing the information and reinstating the site, even absent the articles being questioned, which would have been a reasonable compromise.

Admittedly, part of that responsibility rests in my hands. Had I seen those notices I could have appealed them. They were buried in tens of emails I receive daily from WordPress; and I did not see them. However, after 5.5 years of posting nearly impeccably accurate information, it is my strong opinion that WordPress should not have been so quick to suspend the entire site. Prudence should have dictated that they remove the offending articles, all of which as it happens relate to Shlomo Rechnitz’s Brius Healthcare – three articles written over three years. Whether or not he had something to do with the false DMCA notices is anyone’s guess. I cannot say for certain, though I have my own thoughts on the matter.

The moral of the story is that I have reason to believe that perhaps the medium under which I am currently posting, WordPress, no longer has at the heart of its purpose the integrity associated with a free and equal press. I strongly believe that they have become and will continue to be a purely moneymaking endeavor. Unfortunately that would mean that I would be constantly looking over my shoulder to figure out what’s next. Their “happiness engineers” are anything but; and it is difficult, at best, to get a response. Chasing after false notices and complying with taxing, if not entirely unreasonable demands to return materials that are ultimately mine, is simply not how I want to spend my days. Moreover, and if I am honest, it would be difficult to convince me that they did not have someone behind the scenes trying to delay the return of the site. When you do not trust the entity holding your website, it is difficult to continue writing with confidence. At this juncture were moving the website elsewhere did not place me at risk of being accused of “republication” and resetting the “statute of limitations” clock on every article ever posted, I would simply port the site out to a new location. In the interest of self-preservation, and for reasons that follow, I have decided against that course of action.

To tell you a bit about myself (and I suppose you could call this attorney advertising), I am an attorney who practices in the areas of finance, securities, business and now cryptocurrency and the accompanying potential regulatory implications associated therewith. Most of my firm’s clients have been with us for many years and were obtained by word of mouth. I have had the opportunity to meet only a small handful of my clients, whom I would recognize by voice but not by face. I am humbled by the trust they have placed in me over the course of many years. I am most intrigued by those who hired me after I was unmasked as Lost Messiah because they had been following the blog. To my observant clients, who chose to judge me not by what might have been perceived as a blogger’s failings; but rather by what they viewed as a clearheaded approach, I am very grateful to you.

In addition to my institutional clients, I have also represented a number of small startups in the area of corporate structuring and incorporation; and I am very selective about whom I will represent. I do not represent clients that I believe lack integrity. My relationships with my clients is one of trust. They know I will always be honest and I know they will generally accept my advice, whether they like it or not. I find litigation distasteful, primarily because it is no longer about truth but about gaming the system. I have had the good and bad fortune of meeting many litigators of late, and the best litigators these days, I have found, are either spectacular horse-traders, donate oodles of money to political campaigns or know how to play the courtrooms in their jurisdictions. The ones whom I respect most, are practicing law as it once was and should have remained. And to my own attorneys, I have the utmost respect and owe an eternal debt of gratitude. The litigious practice of law is disappointing. I believe that the poor and underfinanced are at a huge disadvantage; and so, I have and continue to negotiate contracts, review investments, design an architectural outline for new companies and startups and employ my talents for a litany of people and investor clients.

To my clients, I don’t take lightly the trust they place in me and the firm on a daily basis; and I represent nearly all of my clients to the best of my ability. I am planning to continue the practice of law, which for whatever reason, has become busier than it was in 2016 when I began this blogging endeavor. I plan, however, to reduce the number of clients I took on and take on as a pro bono matter because they were underdogs or needed help or information that this website seemed to provide. I have come to realize that many of them need more than lawyers, they need magicians and sadly, I do not have a magic wand. And to any lawyer, I recommend in no uncertain terms that you take great care when vetting new clients. I was once warned that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. I have found no greater truth.

By way of education, I earned an MA from Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Mt. Scopus in political theory, most of my classes taught in Hebrew. It was there that I became an observant adherent to Judaism and also there where I backed down from an otherwise fundamentalist approach, to find a balance in my own religious belief. I had the good fortune to study with some marvelous people, their rabbis, their kehila and their students in Jerusalem and Bnei Brak and I owe them for their patience, guidance and teachings. While some of them have not loved this blog, they have been kind enough to keep in touch, offer honest, if not harsh criticism, and provide a different perspective. I am eternally grateful.

I obtained a BA with departmental honors from a small college in upstate NY, where I graduated with a dual major in government and philosophy. I earned my Law Degree from Rutgers University in Newark, NJ. I teach CLE classes for the National Business Law Institute, where I am on their regular staff, and I teach for a few other CLE programs, focusing on contracts, mergers and acquisitions, due diligence, drafting, indemnities, negotiations and ethics.

To my childhood, I grew up speaking some Yiddish as the common language among grandparents, all of whom had escaped Eastern Europe a few years before the Second World War and all of whom lost most of their siblings to Treblinka, Auschwitz, Birkenau and Bergen Belsen. I have seen at least two of those camps and done extensive research on the horrors of the war. At home I speak Hebrew and English. I read the Hebrew, English and Spanish newspapers, which is where much of the information for this blog comes from.

My family members were some of the top Yiddish scholars to have lived and taught and I am honored to be a part of that heritage. In that context I have heard Elie Wiesel speak in Yiddish about his book “Night” and had the greatest honor of meeting him. I was very young; but I will forever be touched by that experience. My family members were Yiddish playwrights and actors, as well, so Yiddish in my home represented a language of culture, of education, of love, of humor, of expressions not found in any other language, and of course, of a way to relate to those who were trapped without a common language to speak. I firmly believe that it was never intended to be used by the religious to avoid assimilation or to draw attention to religious differences. Those who escaped the war speaking Yiddish did so out of convenience and comradery, not out of a desire to hide behind and flaunt their differences. Yiddish was a thread that bound survivors together. In my view, it has become a divisive language reflecting a hardline approach to religion which is something that would have shattered my ancestors’ hopes and beliefs for the future. Yiddish is an extraordinary language. It is my hope that one day it will return from its current state to its former glory. I don’t delude myself.

I hold a number of certifications in a whole host of areas. I write, blog not only on this site but on some sites for my home town on Facebook. I have written letters to the editor for a number of publications. I have contributed to several news stories with research I compiled; and will continue to do so. I am a triathlete, committed to training for and completing half-ironman races, am an endurance cyclist and hope to complete stages of the Race Across America (RAAM) over the next few years.

In addition to my formal education, I have a background in biochemistry and science, an intense and personal knowledge of nursing homes and hospitals, know far more than I ever wanted to about blood clotting disorders, stroke and heart attack, suicide, and I know far more than I ever wanted to know about sexual assault. Nursing home abuse and sexual assault are two of the most significant triggers for the creation of this blog.

Everything I know or have learned has been the result of hard work, tenacity, intensive research, endless reading and the desire to one day put it all together for the goal of changing the world for the better. That is how this blog began. And to some extent it is my hope that I have helped better the lives of some of you. To those I may have offended along the way, my apologies.

My anonymity when I began writing the blog was of significant importance, not only because of the causes I was taking on, some of which carried with them particular dangers and personal peril; but also because it is easy to believe the integrity of a story if you can put a name and an education to the information provided. I wanted my readers, you, to glean whatever you could from your own lens. I did not want my writings and analyses to come from someone who, at the end of the day, is an education-pedigree snob. The interpretation of events and circumstances is, in large part, about the audience not about the writer. An absence of anonymity provided that. I believe that people need an education and that having that education if earned honestly holds some weight. It provides a future, opens doors, allows a means of communication and the skills to interpret events and circumstances independent of family upbringing. I did not want the weight of my writing to be about the education I hold; but rather about your interpretation of the weighty subjects I tried to cover.

Unfortunately, the greatest loss of the last three years, beyond the financial toll it has taken, has been the loss of my anonymity. And it is largely for that reason that I am going to be posting far less, if at all. I worked tirelessly with my attorney to get the blog back so you would have the benefit of the 5.5 years of work that went into it and the information posted. You, the readers, really own the content. WordPress should not have been so fast to try and take it away.

At this juncture, and as a point of attorney advertising, if you need an attorney, you can always contact my office and I will attempt to find someone for you if I cannot help you. I can still be reached on findinglostmessiah@gmail.com. I will be transitioning some of the content of this blog to formal whistleblowing, legal authorities and investigators; so please send along information as it becomes available.

For those of you who have contacted me for help investigating matters of importance, I will continue to do my best to help. I have amassed a collection of information which I try to keep up-to-date and vouchsafed.

For those of you who continue to send me information, I will post periodically or use it for the purpose you intended. The Twitter site associated with this site will remain in place. I want to thank everyone who has sent along words of encouragement, of hope, of appreciation and of methods of navigation. I am grateful to you, my readers. I am forever humbled.

Finally, the donations page attached to this blog is still working. I never earned any money as a blogger but there are significant costs associated with the last 5.5 years. If you feel generous, donations are welcome. If not, so-be-it.

It has been an honor to serve you for the last 5.5 years. Until we meet again.

Julie D. Globus

An Apology, Louis Kestenbaum, Joel Kestenbaum and Fortis Property Group

AN APOLOGY

My name is Julie Globus. I am the author and published of the LostMessiah Blog. On May 1, 2016 and May 2, 2016 respectively, I published several articles about Louis Kestenbaum, Joel Kestebaum, and their company, Fortis Property Group in my blog that are false. The two articles that contained false information are: “The Kestenbaum Family 1999 to Today, Nothing’s Changed” and “Louis Kestenbaum – A Storied Checkered Past.”

One of those articles contained a sourced article actually written about Jeffrey Epstein but the author had removed Jeffrey Epstein’s name and replaced it with Louis Ketenbaum’s name. That was wrong and unjustifiably cause hard to Louis Kestenbaum, his reputation, and his family and businesses.

A second article I published referred to a person also named Louis Kestenbaum, who in 1984 was fired from Penzoil Company in New Mexico for “sexual harassment, illegal conduct, and mismanagement of the ranch.” The Penzoil employee is not the Louis Kestenbaum from Brooklyn, New York, about whom I wrote. Other than sharing the same name, those two individuals are entirely unrelated. That was wrong and unjustifiably caused harm to Louis Kestenbaum, his reputation, and that of his family and businesses.

I have found no evidence that Louis Kestenbaum, Joel Kestenbaum, or their company, Fortis Property Group, was ever involved in any wrongdoing about which I wrote or that the allegations I wrote about them were true.

I apologize for any harm that my reporting of these allegations may have caused to Louis Kestenbaum, Joel Kestenbaum, or their company Fortis Property Group.

Satmar Brothers from Williamsburg and Monsey Busted in BH Mortgage Scam

From the files of Larry Noodles, published by LM on 5.21.21

SATMAR BROTHERS BUSTED IN HARTFORD

Jacob Deutsch of Williamsburg and Aron Deutsch of Monsey own BH (Baruch Hashem) Property Management, LLC, a property management company that used to manage several multifamily housing properties in Hartford. They purchased 16 Evergreen Avenue, a 24-unit housing property, and 53 Evergreen Avenue, a 12-unit housing property in 2017 from a limited liability company based in China called Hong Ying Investment, which is owned by Yinghao Huang, Hongfen Yu, and Chao Liang Jia of Changzhou, Jaingsu, China, wherever that is. Hong Ying Investment, LLC took back mortgages from the Deutsch brothers totaling $912,000.00. Its not clear what the Deutsch brothers actually paid for the properties, but it must have been over a million bucks assuming they put down some kind of deposit.

In 2018 the Deutsch brothers applied for real mortgages, backed by the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation, ie., Freddie Mac, to refinance the properties. They were just indicted for lying on their Freddie Mac mortgage applications. Not just little lies. Big, blatant lies.

The FBI had no problem building a case against Jacob and Aron Deutsch. It was the year of the rat. Their own employees ratted them out. Former employees of B H Property Management told investigators that Aron and Jacob instructed them to create fake rent rolls showing that the apartment buildings were 100% occupied, when in reality the apartment buildings were completely vacant. When inspectors from the bank went to visit the apartment buildings Aron and Jacob told their employees to purchase furniture and furnish the properties. The Deutsch brothers told their employees to put their old clothing into the apartments to make the apartments look occupied. Employees were told to create fake leases with fake electronic signatures. Employees were instructed to photo shop utility bills with the names of fake tenants. Jacob and Aron mailed themselves money orders, which they purchased with their own credit cards, in order to show rental payments. Chutzpah! If you are going to commit mortgage fraud don’t use your own credit card.

DeutschIndictmentDownload

To continue reading, click here.

NJ’s Granny Profiteers: Who are They? Do We Even Know – For-Profit Nursing Homes and Their Elusive Owners

Ambulance crews are parked outside Andover Subacute and Rehabilitation Center in Andover, N.J., on Thursday April 16, 2020. Police responding to an anonymous tip found more than a dozen bodies Sunday and Monday at the nursing home in northwestern New Jersey, according to news reports. The ownership has since changed hands and the facilities renamed Limecrest Subacute and Rehabilitation Center and Woodland Behavioral and Nursing Center. (AP Photo/Ted Shaffrey) APAP

What the Pandemic Revealed About This Country’s Nursing Home Owners – New Jersey

Published 5.13.21, last edit 5:32pm

Dear Reader:

The leap of faith necessary to contemplate the astronomical profit on the trafficked lives of the elderly in this country requires a simple review of the industry’s finances. How very easy it is to defraud Medicare, Medicaid and the healthcare insurance industry. It is even easier for those charged with accountability to look the other way.

Few will put it all together lest they have to confront the brutality that has been deemed acceptable by any humane standards. We, here, lose sleep over it all. There is no accountability in the nursing home industry. In fact, when we were all looking the other way, New York’s Governor Cuomo installed the Granny Killer Immunity Provisions, many states following suit. Governor Cuomo’s campaign was funded, in pertinent part, by nursing home owners, their attorneys, the healthcare lobby, the pharma lobby, the insurance industry, all a collective of accomplices in removing the light and thus increasing profits.

A conscience… huh? What is that?

Those who are willing to speak out are punished for their efforts. Attorneys have been disbarred for whistleblowing, called something else, as they attempt to uncover the inhumanity. Newspaper journalists have been and continue to be admonished or sued for shedding light on the hardcore truths about the industry. Public media wars have been waged on politicians trying to right an entirely skewed collective moral compass. It is an “open secret” in politics, we are told.

Ownership structures have been repeatedly scrambled to protect the wealthy. Money is regularly exchanged under cover of darkness. Programs have been defunded to avoid establishing a system of accountability. Nurses get sued for walking away. Underpaid healthcare workers demand better wages and many are denied, lest there be a reduction of Net Profits.

At its fundamental atomic level, the nursing home industry is nothing more or less than the exchange of money for human life. Full stop.

The criminal nature of the industry, at least under our 45, ran from the top down. We believe everyone in between was more than happy to look the other way, or offer a “distribution of…. relief funding.” US President 45 offered a commuted sentence to a nursing home magnate who defrauded his victims out of millions and millions in what is referred to as “unbounded greed”. Private equity firms and their attorneys, more than happy to “say nothing and hear nothing,” are profiting and profiteering. And the cycle continues.

There is a sheer and inexplicable cognitive dissonance of those who do not question this industry, its finances, its treatment of the elderly. For years we, along with our collective and small group of journalists, bloggers and activists have tried to scatter the puzzle pieces for anyone who might be willing to put them together.

The savagery coupled with the profit is really not rocket science to figure out.

It took a pandemic to show just how blurred the lines of that which is deemed acceptable in a humane society really are. The black and white of right and wrong were crossed a very long time ago. Perhaps a New Jersey law is a step in the right direction. Likely not. Until owners who have records of abusing the system are put permanently out of commission, no law will draw an impassable line. It is all just a distraction.

Pandemic revealed N.J. does not know who owns for-profit nursing homes. New law would change that.

Nursing home operators must reveal more information about their finances and their ownership and also pass a review evaluating their track record on safety and quality before state regulators will allow properties to be sold, under a new law Gov. Phil Murphy signed late Wednesday.

he legislation emerged from a series of recommendations the healthcare consultant Manatt Health made a year ago to improve how nursing homes operate, after the coronavirus killed 5,400 long-term care residents within two months. The death toll is at about 8,000 today.

Manatt concluded the industry was unprepared for the pandemic, in part because one-third of all facilities had been cited for infection control violations previously and staffing shortages were endemic.

The consultant also took issue with the Health Department for not aggressively monitoring the 370 nursing homes in the state, 74% of which are owned by for-profit companies that change hands often. Manatt recommended the state adopt a stricter system of reviewing operators’ finances before they are permitted to buy new facilities.

The law, A4477, requires nursing home operators to report the names, addresses and the organizational chart for the companies who intend to buy a facility, any lease or management agreements, a list of all facilities the buyer has owned in the last five years and financial audits from the last three years. The health department will use the information to identify facilities which may be in financial distress, according to the law. Applications for ownership transfers must be posted on the DOH’s website.

NJ.com, to continue reading click here.

First Amendment Activist is in Danger. Lakewood is a War Zone. Litvaks Attack Hassidim? A Load of Nonsense…

When Harming Another Becomes An Indoctrinated Acceptable Practice, Religious Belief Has Little Value

Published 5.13.21 10:33 am, edited 5.16.21 6:07pm

Dear Readers:

Before we begin, we had contemplated whiting out the faces of the children in the photos below. But they are published and we decided we would follow the lead of the publication. The children and parents, it would seem, take such pride in their behavior.

The story is not about the “Litvaks versus the Hasidim. That is a load of “Chara” put out as poor excuse to enshroud deeply violent behavior. The violence is against one family, that of First Amendment Activist. It is intended to shut him up. And, in our view, there is little difference between indoctrinating your children to violently terrorize a family or strapping a bomb to their waists and telling them to explode it where it can cause the most damage – all for a cause – religion.

We have relied on facts presented by First Amendment Activist, a fellow blogger and journalist looking out for the well-being of his friends, family and Jewish brethren in Lakewood, Toms River and Ocean County, New Jersey. A fact-check of FAA’s material is nothing if not accurate. Scary thing for a community that wants to keep its dirty laundry out of plain sight.

EVERYONE, bar none, should be thankful for his advocacy in New Jersey. What the protesters are doing is not a “great goal” as stated by a Rebbitzin in the article below. These children, encouraged by their parents, are treacherous savages trying to silence a blogger and activist.

First Amendment Activist is a deeply religious person, with a steady ethical and moral set of views and standards grounded in a belief in G-d, family and country. He should be declared a hero in his community. Instead, he is now being treated as a Pariah. Sadly, the hierarchy of police, government, the mayor, the governing bodies are doing nothing to assist him as he gets his house “egged” on a daily basis, as he gets ostracized and as his family gets threatened with violence. All in the name of G-d? No. All in the name of covering up crimes committed in the name of G-d. That is nothing if not G-dless.

The responsible parties of these children who find pleasure in violence, are parents who have taught their children that this behavior is okay, acceptable, if not encouraged. Religious, allegedly devout parents are teaching their children that violence is to be rewarded. The JNews which published this story has it all wrong. The “Litvaks versus the Hassidim” story is not the reason for these young thugs to behave as they are behaving.

Yes. The Litvaks and the Hassidim in Ocean County, generally and Lakewood, particularly, are not allied. They are engaged in their own version of a holy war. But the reality of the story has little to do with that battle. The story should have been focused on the utter savagery being imparted upon one family. It is covered under a shroud of this holy war. And that is a lie.

To the parents of the children pictured in the below, public clips, you should be ashamed of yourselves, teaching your children that “egging” houses, that calling someone a “moser” is okay. The children are dressed as G-d faring disciples. Sadly, the children suffer the sins of the parents and they are nothing, if not thugs and hoodlums bullying and endorsing violence.

Anti-Semitism? Might be Time for Our Jewish Brethren to Look in the Mirror

“Judaism and Zionism are Absolute Antonyms”

Posted 5.10.21 4:17pm

Dear Reader:

The above is on posters being held by some of the protesters in these videos.

Many of the ultra-Orthodox zealots in this video are funded by American Jewish counterparts. These are people who believe, from a fundamental perspective, in the destruction of the State of Israel. And, as the birth rate within the ultra-Orthodox community grows exponentially when compared to secular birth rates, once must wonder what happens when a majority of Israel’s Jews are opposed to the existence of the very state in which they live.

To the American supporters of these radical Jewish groups, who characterize every criticism as anti-Semitism, unwilling to stand up and say that this is not Judaism but something altogether foreign, you will have the inevitable destruction of the Jewish state as we know it today, sitting on your collective shoulders.

Protesters like those above are destructive to all Jewish identity, whether religious or secular. They are not tolerant of anything or anyone and yet, as American Jewish organizations fight anti-Semitism they refuse to question the integrity of the version of Judaism depicted above.

Mainstream Judaism does not support the view that “Judaism and Zionism are Absolute Antonyms.” Sadly, it might be time for organizations like Agudath Israel, the American Jewish Congress, the Jewish National Fund and others to speak out against the expression of “Judaism” in this video.

Senator Serino – Cuomo’s Revisionist History – Have you Considered His Nursing Home Conglomerate Donor Pool?

SERINO SLAMS GOVERNOR’S REVISIONIST HISTORY ON NURSING HOME DEATHS

SUE SERINO

April 29, 2021

• NURSING HOME DEATHS

HYDE PARK, NY – Senator Sue Serino released the following in response to comments made today by the Governor at a Buffalo event in relation to COVID-19 deaths in New York’s nursing homes:

“The Governor can rewrite history all he wants, but the truth is the only people who played politics when it came to hiding the number of nursing home deaths in New York State are the members of his Administration who have now been caught doing so for months.

I first called for a full investigation into the state’s overall handling of the COVID crisis in nursing homes on May 7, 2020—at a time when the Governor’s approval rating was through the roof—and most would argue it was actually politically unpopular to criticize anything his Administration was doing at the time. I did so because it was the right thing to do. Families who were losing loved ones deserved answers. Having access to the real number of deaths could have provided a more accurate picture of the pandemic’s impact, which could have helped us improve the state’s response and maybe even saved lives.

Time and again, the Governor clearly put politics—and profit—over the residents of these facilities. It’s not right, and we will not stop pushing for truthful answers and real accountability.”

When asked today why his Administration hid the accurate number of nursing home deaths for so long, the Governor claimed the issue was simply politicized. He continued to argue that withholding the data was about ‘accuracy.’

Senator Serino countered that point saying, “If they were so concerned about ‘accuracy,’ then they would have withheld all the numbers until they were properly audited. Instead, they were okay with publicly releasing a blatant undercount that fit the Administration’s own political narrative. An undercount the Governor publicly bragged about repeatedly. The hypocrisy is stunning. New Yorkers—especially these vulnerable residents and their loved ones—deserve so much better.”

Senator Serino is the Ranking Member of the Senate’s Aging Committee.

Senator O’Mara – Weekly Column, Gov. Cuomo – What about the Nursing Home Tragedy? AND OVERSIGHT??? Covid-19

Senator O’Mara’s weekly column ‘From the Capitol’ ~ for the week of May 10, 2021 ~ ‘No, governor, nursing homes tragedy not ‘smart'”

May 10, 2021

• COMBATING COVID-19 AND PROTECTING NEW YORKERS; PROTECTING NURSING HOME RESIDENTS

Senator O’Mara shares his weekly perspective on issues facing New York State government.Every available action needs to be taken to compel the governor and his inner circle to tell the truth and be held accountable. New Yorkers, in particular families who lost loved ones in nursing homes due to Cuomo’s fateful order, deserve nothing less.

Senator O’Mara offers his weekly perspective on many of the key challenges and issues facing the Legislature, as well as on legislative actions, local initiatives, state programs and policies, and more. Stop back every Monday for Senator O’Mara’s latest column…

This week, “No, governor, nursing homes tragedy not ‘smart'”

Here was the lead paragraph in a National Review article late last week following Governor Andrew Cuomo’s May 5th news conference: “New York governor Andrew Cuomo defended an executive order that may have exacerbated coronavirus outbreaks in state nursing homes as ‘smart’ from a ‘medical point of view.’”

Smart?

After all these months, when how Governor Cuomo and his inner circle addressed the COVID-19 pandemic in nursing homes has been defined by cover-ups, stonewalling, lies, and the like, and keeping in mind that the Cuomo administration is under federal investigation for its actions, the governor calls it “smart.”

Trust me, there’s another side to that story.

Recall that Governor Cuomo issued a March 25, 2020 directive requiring New York State nursing homes to accept COVID-positive patients from hospitals into the homes. Last year’s March 25th directive would end up sending more than 9,000 COVID-positive patients into hundreds of nursing homes statewide, according to reporting from the Associated Press earlier this year, and likely contributed to thousands of deaths. Over 6,000 of those were new admissions to nursing homes, not readmissions as the Cuomo administration has tried to lead the public to believe.

Here’s how “smart” that action was considered at the time by many of the nation’s leading long-term care professionals.

The day after Governor Cuomo’s March 25 directive to nursing homes, on March 26, 2020, a prominent, national group of long-term care professionals denounced the directive and warned against it.

Specifically, the prominent, national medical professionals group American Medical Directors Association (AMDA)-The Society for Post-Acute Care and Long-Term Care (PALTC) Medicine released a statement that the Cuomo order was “over-reaching, not consistent with science…and beyond all, not in the least consistent with patient safety principles.” The group’s statement went on, “Rather than bullying nursing facilities and medical providers to make unsafe decisions, the State of New York would be wise to direct its energies at ensuring adequate personal protective equipment is available to all healthcare providers…developing a long-neglected healthcare workforce, and identifying and standing up alternative care sites.”

Three days later, on March 29, AMDA-PALTC was joined in another statement by the American Health Care Association (AHCA) and the National Center for Assisted Living (NCAL). The groups stated, “As organizations dedicated to preserving the safety of patients and residents in post-acute and long-term care settings including assisted living, we strongly object to this policy directive and approach…This is a short-term and short-sighted solution that will only add to the surge in COVID-19 patients…We understand the need for public health and elected officials to weigh the risks and benefits of their decisions…However, a blanket order for every nursing home in the state to accept all admissions from hospitals is not sound policy.” [Both statements can be viewed in full on the AMDA-PALTC website: paltc.org]

Despite these dire warnings from the medical community directly involved in the care of our state’s elderly nursing home residents this directive was left in place for more than 30 days, until May 10, 2020. During this period, in excess of 9,000 COVID-positive hospital patients were sent from hospitals into New York’s nursing homes. Over 6,000 of these patients were not in a nursing home prior to entering the hospital.

During a joint Senate-Assembly hearing on the nursing homes crisis on August 3, 2020, I directly asked Health Commissioner Howard Zucker if he had received and read the March 26 and March 29 statements. He denied knowledge of them.

I didn’t believe Commissioner Zucker on that day and I still don’t believe it. It is simply not credible that New York’s top health official would not have been informed on statements from leading medical professionals expressing their alarm at one of New York State’s key directives and its potential and alarming risk to the elderly and these residential facilities overall.

And I don’t believe that Governor Cuomo’s policy was “smart.”

If Governor Cuomo and his top lieutenants had heeded the warning from the experts on the front lines of nursing home care in America, thousands of nursing home residents would have at least been better protected. Many lives could have been saved. 

The question is no longer whether the Cuomo administration’s handling of the nursing homes tragedy was smart.

Instead, in my view and the view of many others, the question remains unanswered about why Governor Cuomo and his inner circle ignored the warnings from public health experts that their March 25 mandate to nursing homes to accept COVID-positive patients was over-reaching, and not consistent with science or patient safety principles. 

It is just one of many unanswered questions that still demand to be pursued regarding the Cuomo administration’s nursing homes cover-up.

Governor Cuomo has tried to conceal the truth on the devastation of this crisis in our nursing homes and in other places, and it has caused great harm. Reports keep forcefully exposing the lies, cover-ups, and crimes.

Every available action needs to be taken to compel the governor and his inner circle to tell the truth and be held accountable. New Yorkers, in particular families who lost loved ones in nursing homes due to Cuomo’s fateful order, deserve nothing less.

What has Upside, REIT’s, JV’s, a $144,000 per Bed Price Tag and Depends Upon Vulnerable Human Capital? Read On…

Published: 5.7.21 at 4:07pm

Dear Reader:

When a change in ownership within some of the largest players in the nursing home industry is described in the news as a “blockbuster move”; and when an earnings call to investors raises the specter of “even further upside potential” without any mention of superior care, quality of life, increased standards, greater accountability and better medicine, it is not nursing care. It is a different animal altogether, the savage world of publicly traded horse-trading.

It is worth noting here, that some of the parties cited in the article below are owners and operators of some of the worst rated nursing and rehabilitation facilities throughout the United States. Thus, shareholders to whom this article was addressed, are to some extent investing in substandard care. That’s just one part of the human tragedy. Another part of the human tragedy, cited in an earlier article below, tacitly admits that one methodology for adding shareholder value is manipulating the more lucrative sides of benefits from acute care patients “who also come with more lucrative Medicare and private insurance coverage than the typical long-term nursing home resident on Medicaid.” Statements like that should upend the comfort of Medicare and private insurance carriers.

Chaim Stern – Steals Millions from His Own Workers and Blames a Substandard Education – Really?

Published 5.6.21

Dear Reader:

Almost as disturbing as the theft committed by an allegedly religious man stealing from his underpaid employees in a nursing home; is the “justification” used to manipulate the mercy of others, namely, a poor education. This excuse for bad behavior creates quite a conundrum.

The State of New York (and likely others to follow) has taken a laissez faire attitude about Yeshiva education, namely that parents should be permitted to choose if to educate (or deny education for) their children. If a Yeshiva educated child comes out with an extraordinary knowledge of Jewish law, little or no ability to properly speak English, little or no future prospects (except perhaps fraud – as Stern illustrates) New York deems this acceptable. Now, it would seem, that same disenfranchisement (educational neglect) is being used to justify and perhaps escape accountability for frauds committed by poorly educated but “observant” Jews.

Something is very wrong with this picture. Either Yesivah children must be educated in civics subjects (oh… and right versus wrong) or they must be held fully accountable when that inadequate education leads to a life of fraud, theft, money laundering, and the list… grows and grows. The Yeshiva community really should not be able to eat their rugalach and have it to.

Former nursing home owner gets 2.5 years in prison for stealing more than $4M from employees

A former Connecticut nursing home owner will spend the next 2 ^1/2 years in prison for stealing more than $4 million from staff members’ pension and health plans. 

Chaim Stern, 72, of Flushing, NY, was sentenced to 30 months in prison for embezzlement and tax offenses, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Connecticut announced this week. His prison time will be followed by three years of supervised release. 

Stern’s sentencing comes three months after he pleaded guilty to the crimes that hurt three Connecticut nursing homes and led to the closure of one of them. 

Because of Stern, the facilities failed to pay employment taxes and pay its shares of employment taxes between January 2017 and March 2018. Stern’s crimes resulted in a total tax loss of about $4.3 million.

McKnights, to continue reading click here.

Philip Esformes – The Donald Commuted his Sentence – 6 Counts Short and the DOJ

Philip Esformes, a nursing home operator, was sentenced to 20 years in prison in a Medicare fraud case before President Trump commuted his sentence this week.Credit…Rob Latour/Invision, via Associated Press

Dear Reader:

We applaud the decision on the part of the Department of Justice, which has announced that it intends to pursue the prosecution of the final 6 counts against Philip Esformes. The jurors failed to reach a conviction in April of 2019. The remaining counts were for “paying and receiving kickbacks, money laundering, bribery and obstruction of justice. A conviction on these counts would be a modicum of justice for the elderly and their families. While Esformes claims to be “spending most of his days studying with rabbis, working, reconnecting with his children, and taking care of his father…” In our opinion, there is no manner of decency Esformes can show that would compensate the hundreds of victims (and their families) of his crimes.

Donald Trump’s commutation of Esformes’ sentence was a deplorable act, in and of itself. The elderly and their families deserved better from their President at the time and they deserve justice now.

Feds Want Accused Medicare Fraudster Philip Esformes Confined Until Trial

May 4—Concerned that a convicted healthcare mogul freed by then-President Donald Trump might flee the country, Justice Department prosecutors urged a federal judge Tuesday to confine Philip Esformes to his South Florida home with an electronic ankle monitor and impose a $10.5 million bond to ensure his appearance for a new trial.

But their request was effectively rebuffed, at least for now.

U.S. District Judge Robert Scola instead granted a request by Esformes’ defense team to postpone the government’s bond proposal until mid-August, when it will be taken up again.

Justice Department prosecutors recently said they will pursue unresolved charges from Esformes’ healthcare fraud trial in 2019, when a federal jury deadlocked on the main conspiracy charge and five other offenses but found him guilty of 20 corruption-related counts. Scola sentenced Esformes to 20 years in prison and ordered him to pay $5.3 million in restitution to the taxpayer-funded Medicare program and a $38 million forfeiture fine.

“The trust that he broke was of epic proportions,” Allan Medina, the lead prosecutor in the $1 billion healthcare fraud case against Esformes, said at Tuesday’s hearing.

insurancenewsnet.com continue reading click here.

ADDITIONAL READING:

Nursing Homes – Hell on Earth for the Elderly… and in New York – it’s Cuomo’s Special Brand of Hell

The number of nursing home residents who died in the pandemic has been a particularly sensitive question for the Cuomo administration. Credit…Pool photo by Shannon Stapleton

Published 5.4.21 9:28am

Dear Reader:

Perhaps the punishment for cruelty to the elderly in nursing care should be lying in the same nursing home bed forced to wallow in excrement and urine. Were we to be a legislators, this would be the top of our bucket list. Alas, should the punishment not fit the crime? And yet, those with the courage to speak out are inevitably doomed.

Most of New York’s nursing homes or those owned throughout the United States by New York nursing home conglomerates, are a special brand of hell to the elderly living in them; and their owners and managers deserve accountability. Many are understaffed or staffed by undertrained employees. In most care is substandard, if there is care at all. In many the food is unpalatable or barely edible, but it is inexpensive. In all but a select few, elderly patients can spend hours sitting in their own excrement, thirsty for a drink, exposed to Covid-19 and other pathogens. There is no accountability. Where laws exist there is no oversight. It is a vicious cycle.

In some, the owners use the open spaces for parties and celebrations – a show of wealth and so-called hospitality. After all, a nursing home is a hospitality business. Even during Covid-19, at the worst of the outbreaks, we received reports of massive gatherings in the halls of some of these homes, catered by top kosher caterers, but not open to the patients and their families.

In all but a select few, money flows like water; and the only beneficiaries are the owners and operators, their investors and the politicians who benefit from political contributions. Name the horror and you will likely find it in New York’s nursing homes. Sadly, so many of the nursing homes are owned by different combinations of the same uber-wealthy individuals who have already sold their souls for money. Their attorneys shut their eyes, look the other way. It is really not an attorney’s job to judge. And the billing is glorious to those attorneys for whom these are their top clients. If one is without a conscience, a sense of morality, and is already adept at skirting laws, falsifying records and documents, paying off or discrediting those who get in their way – will new laws do anything but pay lipservice?

Factor in the guardians, many of whom are complete savages, and we have a lethal mix. Many of the patients are sent to nursing home hell by self-serving guardians who likely get hefty kickbacks – a “quid pro quo” of sorts. Most of New York’s nursing homes are for profit. Their ownership structure can be a moving target, crafted to avoid accountability. Many are financed by hedge funds, hedge fund owners and investment managers; or are publicly traded in various portfolios in the stock exchanges of the United States, Israel, the Canadian Stock Exchange and so many others. It is business, after all. Are we talking about human life? Irrelevant really. We are talking about money.

Guardianship is an extraordinary racket, a well-oiled machine which includes (but is not limited to) social workers, judges, politicians, guardians, medical staff, nursing staff, attorneys, the judiciary and the list goes on and on and on. It is a vicious cycle with little hope of breaking. We have been told it is an “open secret” in government and those who attack the system inevitably doom themselves to a loss of livelihood, reputation, financial well-being and even family safety. The people involved in this racket are like a close-knit family “the Gansa Mishpucha” for whom money leads, whatever conscious there is or may have been was set aside long ago.

The multitude of people involved are not morally bankrupt, as that implies there was something there to bankrupt in the first instance. That is a stretch. The elderly in many of the nations nursing homes are nothing more than financially lucrative chattel; lives of meaningless vulnerable people whose daily existence generates cash. It is a godless business.

New York’s nursing homes and their owners are some of the worst. And then there’s the governor, Andrew Cuomo and his aides who were complicit in setting in motion further devastation as Covid-19 ravaged the elderly. So what did they do? They created immunity – and another loophole to escape accountability. We have coined that immunity the “Granny Killer Immunity Provisions”. Cuomo’s political existence has depended, in large part, upon a significant donor pool that exists within the nursing home industry. He is the quintessential beneficiary of political largesse.

Creating laws that would protect our morally challenged nursing home owners was all part of the movement of money. Until Covid-19 put the brakes on that, at least temporarily it just kept going. The Granny Killer Immunity Provisions immunized nursing home owners, operators and managers and hospitals. Those provisions have been overturned but their creation should be a warning to anyone in this fight. If the power of the nursing home industry can have sway over Governor Cuomo, it will happen again.

There is an effort (see below) to place restrictions on nursing homes. We again pose this: restrictions mean nothing if there is no one there to enforce. Our government is a part of the problem. Enforcement will not happen and the crimes against humanity – our elderly and most vulnerable – will continue. Do we not owe them more lest we all be savages?

Read on….

New report details even bigger lies by Cuomo to cover up nursing home scandal

While Gov. Andrew Cuomo was securing a reported $4 million deal to write a book on his pandemic “leadership,” he and his staff were busy suppressing the truth about New York’s nursing-home deaths in the wake of the March 25 order that forced homes to admit COVID-contagious patients. And it now turns out the coverup was even worse than we’d thought.

On top of blocking health officials from telling the truth, senior staffers also quashed a scientific paper that reported the true fatality total, The New York Times reported.

A June 18 e-mail from top aide Melissa DeRosa to health officials shows Team Cuomo was “anxious” about a pending Department of Health report on nursing-home coronavirus fatalities and out to downplay the idea that the March 25 mandate had proved deadly.

The Cuomoites were publicly citing a nursing-home death toll of about 6,000 by ignoring home residents who’d died while hospitalized. The draft report shared the full count of over 9,700, noting that the homes accounted for “approximately 35 percent” of all NY coronavirus deaths. But DeRosa — who at the same time was intimately involved in the gov’s book-deal negotiations — and other staff got all that edited out. The final report said the homes only yielded 21 percent of the state’s virus death total, making it seem below, rather than above, the US average.

The New York Post continue reading here.

A photo of a lost loved one shadowed by Cuomo. Photo by Dean Moses

Assemblyman Ron Kim urges Attorney General to investigate Cuomo nursing home scandal

By Dean Moses

The feud between Ron Kim and Andrew Cuomo is not over yet.

Assemblyman Ron Kim and Governor Andrew Cuomo had a very raw, very public falling out this past February that essentially catapulted the nursing home scandal—in which Cuomo is accused of hiding the number of fatalities from COVID-19 within New York State nursing homes—into the media spotlight. Kim became a household name overnight after the local politician alleged Cuomo threatened to ruin his career. Now, Kim is calling upon the Attorney General to join the fight.

Kim gathered with Voices for Seniors members in Foley Square on Monday afternoon. In the shadow of the Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse, the assemblyman stood ahead of those who had lost elderly loved ones to the deadly virus calling out the Governor for what he says are “Some of the worst and deadly policies that this country has ever witnessed.”

“For ten months Andrew Cuomo only listened to the worst operators, the lobbyists, to put forward policies that were not only deadly but were irresponsible and criminal. So, we are here once again calling for full accountability for Andrew Cuomo’s unilateral decision-making around nursing homes, in particular, we are asking for the Attorney General and every other investigator who has now opened up investigations into Andrew Cuomo to look into him and his allies, and his administration committing fraud,” Kim said.

While Attorney General Letitia James is reportedly already conducting an investigation into the slew of sexual misconduct allegations levied at the head of state, this demand for action asks James to look into a cover-up of deaths within nursing homes. Kim also cited the importance of this proposed investigation to the families of the deceased who formed Voices for Seniors, a group that looks to improve the lives of the elderly through advocacy. Members of the organization clutched photographs of perished family members and signs dubbing the Governor a “super spreader,” blaming Cuomo for the deaths of their loved ones.

amNY, to continue reading click here.

Healthcare Lender Alert: New Law Impacts New York State Nursing Homes

As part of its recent budget, New York State has enacted a new law that significantly impacts nursing home operators in New York. Effective January 1, 2022, the new Section 2828 of the Public Health Law requires, among other things, that:

Not less than 70% of nursing home revenues shall be spent on direct resident care costs;

40% of the nursing home revenues must be spent on staff who work directly with patients (so-called resident-facing staff, as that term is defined in Section 2828), which is included in amounts spent on direct resident care costs; and

Nursing home profits are limited to not more than 5%, and profits in excess of this threshold shall be turned over to the [sic]

Pursuant to the legislation, the Department of Health shall promulgate regulations in accordance with the new [sic]

Direct resident care is defined to include non-revenue support services (e.g., maintenance and patient food service), ancillary services (e.g., laboratory and pharmacy services), and program services directly serving patients. 

Direct resident care is defined to include non-revenue support services (e.g., maintenance and patient food service), ancillary services (e.g., laboratory and pharmacy services), and program services directly serving patients. Expenses that are specifically excluded as not related to patient care include, without limitation, administrative costs (other than nurse administration), capital costs, debt service, taxes (other than sales taxes or payroll taxes), capital depreciation, rent and leases, and fiscal services. Specifically excepted from the new law are nursing homes that provide certain specialized services, including, for example, behavioral intervention and neurodegenerative services.

JDSupra, continue reading, here.

Cuomo Aides Spent Months Hiding Nursing Home Death Toll

Aides to the New York governor, Andrew M. Cuomo, repeatedly prevented state health officials from releasing the number of nursing home deaths in the pandemic.

The effort by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s office to obscure the pandemic death toll in New York nursing homes was far greater than previously known, with aides repeatedly overruling state health officials over a span of at least five months, according to interviews and newly unearthed documents.

Mr. Cuomo’s most senior aides engaged in a sustained effort to prevent the state’s own health officials, including the commissioner, Howard Zucker, from releasing the true death toll to the public or sharing it with state lawmakers, these interviews and documents showed.

A scientific paper, which incorporated the data, was never published. An audit of the numbers by a top Cuomo aide was finished months before it became publicly known. Two letters, drafted by the Health Department and meant for state legislators, were never sent.

The actions coincided with the period in which Mr. Cuomo was pitching and then writing a book on the pandemic, with the assistance of his top aide, Melissa DeRosa, and others.

And they came as the governor’s approach to nursing homes was receiving intensifying scrutiny from critics and Republicans, including former President Donald J. Trump, whose administration made a public show of requesting nursing home death data from four states with Democratic governors, including New York.

The number of nursing home residents who died in the pandemic has been a particularly sensitive question for the Cuomo administration.

The number of nursing home residents who died in the pandemic has been a particularly sensitive question for the Cuomo administration.

The New York Times, continue reading here.

ADDITIONAL READING:

A Gem of a Project and Steinmetz… Who’s Benny Steinmetz Again? Think Kushner…

Dear Readers:

This is being published on 5.3.21 at 11:11am – type edited at 3:05pm.

HOW THE MIGHTY HAVE FALLEN:

If this is to be a thorough examination of the facts and circumstances surrounding Steinmetz, one cannot escape the inextricable link he has to Dan Gertler and, well, to Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump. There are no coincidences here.

We have posted information which should be food for thought below, as well as past stories on this subject.

Steinmentz pillaged in the West African nation of Guinea while Dan Gertler focused on the Democratic Republic of Congo. These men, mining magnates [uhhh… gangsters,] for lack of a better word, just drew maps on their turf. And, while all of this was happening, Kushner was drawing battle lines, protecting each from inside the White House. He helped to negotiate, or at least to facilitate, the parties liaising to raze the Magnitsky Act sanctions placed upon Dan Gertler; while at the same time somehow keeping Steinmetz out of the limelight.

It remains a question of how or why the Suisse government got involved in the Steinmetz case when they helped facilitate payments made by Glencore to Gertler around the sanctions; but as we have said repeatedly, everything is orchestrated. It is a well-choreographed dance.

Let’s see what happens with Gertler. And, well… let’s see where the dust settles on Steinmetz

P.S. Each of these men has denied any wrongdoing.

Jared KushnerCredit…Shawn Thew/European Pressphoto Agency

Steinmetz Link To Failed Mining Project To Be Probed In NY

Law360 (April 30, 2021, 8:12 PM EDT) — A New York judge on Thursday agreed to consider additional arguments that Israeli billionaire Beny Steinmetz is the alter ego of a company that owes Brazilian miner Vale SA more than $2.17 billion following a dispute over an ill-fated Guinean mining project.

U.S. District Judge Vernon S. Broderick ordered Vale to provide supplemental briefing in support of its bid to force Steinmetz to respond to its discovery requests, which it sent to the businessman over a year ago.

Read more at: https://www.law360.com/articles/1380519?sidebar=true?copied=1

ADDITIONAL READING:

Swiss Court Finds Israeli Businessman Beny Steinmetz Guilty of Corruption

Israeli billionaire Beny Steinmetz leaves the courthouse after a verdict on corruption charges, in Geneva, Switzerland January 22, 2021. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse



REUTERS

GENEVA (Reuters) – In a landmark verdict in one of the mining world’s most high profile legal cases, a Swiss criminal court found Israeli businessman Beny Steinmetz guilty of corruption and forgery on Friday and sentenced him to five years in jail with a sizeable fine.

The ruling after a two-week trial is a blow for Steinmetz, a diamond trader, whose pursuit of the world’s richest uptapped deposits of iron ore put him at the centre of a battle that has triggered probes and litigation around the world.

Steinmetz said he would appeal the verdict, which also included a 50 million Swiss francs ($56.48 million) fine.

“It is a big injustice,” he told reporters in the courtyard of the Geneva courthouse.

Steinmetz and two others were variously accused of paying or arranging payment of $10 million in bribes between 2006 and 2010 to Mamadie Toure, whom prosecutors say was one of the wives of the former president Lansana Conte, to obtain exploration permits for iron ore buried beneath the remote Simandou mountains of Guinea and of forging documents to cover it up through a web of shell companies and bank accounts.

Toure, who lives in Florida, could not be reached for comment.

All three defendants denied the charges.

Presiding judge Alexandra Banna said Steinmetz and his co-defendants had used fake accounts and attempted to have incriminating documents destroyed to hide their criminal behaviour.

Banna said that Steinmetz had made an immediate profit from the rights to mine and not a cent went to the West African nation of Guinea.

No one from the government in Guinea was immediately available to comment.

Steinmetz, 64, a former Geneva resident who moved back to Israel in 2016, has in the past been ranked as a billionaire and one of Israel’s wealthiest men. Asked by the court to estimate his personal fortune, he said it was $50-80 million.

US News and World Report: continue reading here.

Beny Steinmetz gets jail, Dan Gertler a reprieve

In december 2017 Donald Trump’s administration imposed financial sanctions on Dan Gertler. That came as a shock to the government of Joseph Kabila, who was then the president of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Mr Gertler, who was named alongside several allegedly crooked politicians and businessmen, was one of Mr Kabila’s closest friends. He was also a middlemanwho had sold much of Congo’s wealth in minerals to the world since arriving there in the wake of war in 1997.

America’s Treasury department said that Mr Gertler had “amassed his fortune through hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of opaque and corrupt mining and oil deals”. Between 2010 and 2012 alone Congo had “lost over $1.36 billion in revenues from the underpricing of mining assets that were sold to offshore companies linked to” the Israeli billionaire, it said. The sanctions froze Mr Gertler’s bank accounts and prevented any firm from doing business with him in dollars.

The Economist: Read here.

Bribe Cases, a Jared Kushner Partner and Potential Conflicts

By Jesse Drucker

• April 26, 2017

It was the summer of 2012, and Jared Kushner was headed downtown.

His family’s real estate firm, the Kushner Companies, would spend about $190 million over the next few months on dozens of apartment buildings in tony Lower Manhattan neighborhoods including the East Village, the West Village and SoHo.

For much of the roughly $50 million in down payments, Mr. Kushner turned to an undisclosed overseas partner. Public records and shell companies shield the investor’s identity. But, it turns out, the money came from a member of Israel’s Steinmetz family, which built a fortune as one of the world’s leading diamond traders.

The New York Times: Read here.

Leifer’s 74 Counts of Sexual Abuse and the Israeli Health Minister that Protected Her

Yaakov Litzman (right) is accused of interfering in Malka Leifer’s extradition case. Photo: TND

Posted by Lost Messiah 4.28.21

Israeli minister to be prosecuted over alleged interference in Malka Leifer extradition

A former Israeli Health Minister is set to be prosecuted for interfering in the Malka Leifer case by attempting to prevent her extradition to Australia.

Ms Leifer, 54,  fronted the Melbourne Magistrates Court earlier this month and is facing 74 charges of child sex abuse, including multiple counts of rape, indecent assault and sexual penetration of a child.

She is accused of abusing three sisters – Dassi Erlich, Nicole Meyer and Elly Sapper – during her time as headmistress of Adass Israel School in Elsternwick between 2001 and 2008.

Israeli media is now reporting the former health minister Yaakov Litzman will be prosecuted for trying to prevent Ms Leifer from being extradited to Australia to face justice.

The Israeli police fraud unit has been investigating Mr Litzman for several months after it was alleged he pressured psychiatrists to state Ms Leifer was unfit to stand trial in Australia while the extradition case was ongoing.

The New Daily continue reading here.

Granny Killer Immunity for Nursing Homes to be Laid to Rest? And Profit Over Care? Alongside the Dead…

Posted by Lost Messiah 4.28.21

Gov Cuomo signs bill repealing legal immunity granted to New York nursing homes during pandemic as he faces probe into hundreds of excess deaths at care facilities

Effective immediately, nursing homes and other healthcare facilities can be held civilly and criminally liable for treatment of individuals with COVID-19

The bill was sponsored and championed by Cuomo critics including Sen. Alessandra Biaggi

However, Cuomo himself has faced calls to resign amid probes into whether the state mishandled nursing home deaths related to the pandemic

The Cuomo administration has faced accusations that the state miscounted hundreds of nursing home deaths as hospital deaths

Lawmakers had already rolled back some of the protections that had been granted to healthcare workers last year

The Daily Mail, to continue reading click here.

New York State lawmakers discuss nursing home staffing bill

New York State lawmakers discuss nursing home staffing bill

Queens assemblyman and advocates rally for nursing homes investigation and immunity repeal

“Every time we get close to the truth, it seems like the governor is untouchable. How many more scandals? How many more women? How many more nursing home-related lies and frauds need to be exposed before we can hold him accountable?” Kim said during a virtual rally with advocates on Thursday, April 1. 

QNS, to continue reading click here.

Arizona Legislators Should Reject Immunity for Nursing Homes

This week, Arizona legislators will vote on bill 1377, which would shield nursing homes from civil liability for negligence while providing services during the Covid-19 pandemic.

At least 32 states have already passed laws or issued executive orders during the pandemic making it harder for nursing home residents or their families to take the companies that run these facilities to court. The new Arizona bill would protect any health care institution assumed to be acting in “good faith” except in cases of “willful misconduct” or “gross negligence.”

The provision of such broad immunity is particularly problematic for nursing homes in light of growing evidence indicating that during the pandemic, nursing home residents have suffered considerable harms from neglect and prolonged isolation, in addition to the risk of Covid-19 itself.

In a report published last week, Human Rights Watch documented serious concerns over possible neglect in nursing homes across the United States during the pandemic’s first year, when staffing was low and family members were often not allowed in facilities. Residents, family members, and staff reported extreme weight loss, dehydration, and infected bedsores, which in some cases may have contributed to death. In many cases, residents’ hygiene appeared to have been neglected as well, with family members reporting residents were left in soiled incontinence pads for hours at a time and their hair and fingernails grew long and dirty. Many nursing home residents, deprived of daily social contact because of restrictions on visitors and activities, declined physically and emotionally.

The academic evidence echoes our findings: just last week, an article published in the Journal of the American Medical Directors Association (JAMDA) found that in Connecticut nursing homes, depression, substantial weight loss, and incontinence increased among residents in the four months after visitor restrictions went into place.

Human Rights Watch, to continue reading click here.

Chaim Deutsch – Tax Fraud and Removal From City Council

New York City Councilman Chaim Deutsch councilman will have to pay restitution for unpaid taxes.
PHOTO: WILLIAM ALATRISTE/NEW YORK CITY COUNCIL

Posted to Lost Messiah 4.,28.21

For those of us who have been looking closely at Councilman Deutsch and his activities as a representative of the City council (both good and bad) in our opinion, it behooves the government to scrutinize Councilman Deutsch’s activities. One may want to look at the favoritism given, nay offered up, to certain people and communities. The same investigation that led to the guilty plea of Counselman Deutsch should not end here. It may be wise to start looking at each and every person with whom Councilman Deutsch did business, interacted, engaged with at clandestine meetings, and the resulting action on the part of the councilman. – LOSTMESSIAH

New York City Councilman Pleads Guilty to Tax Fraud

A New York City councilman pleaded guilty in Manhattan federal court to a misdemeanor tax-fraud charge for filing fraudulent information on income and expenses tied to his real-estate-management business, prosecutors said Thursday.

Chaim Deutsch, a Democrat who represents parts of Brooklyn, failed to pay $82,000 in taxes owed to the federal government between 2013 and 2015, according to a criminal complaint. Prosecutors in the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York said he also falsely claimed personal expenses as business expenses.

Mr. Deutsch, 52 years old, was first elected in 2014 and for part of his time in office he was the sole owner of Chasa Management Inc., a real-estate-management business, prosecutors said.

The councilman faces up to a year in prison and will have to pay restitution for unpaid taxes, according to the U.S. attorney’s office.

The Wall Street Journal, to continue reading click here.

ADDITIONAL READING:

The Substantial Lack of Equivalency, State Sanctioned Educational Neglect, Some Yeshivas

Posted to Lost Messiah on April 28, 2021

THE CITY Sues the Department of Education to Get Brooklyn Yeshiva Investigation Documents

THE CITY filed a lawsuit Tuesday against the city Department of Education after the agency refused to provide documents related to its investigation of the content and quality of instruction at Jewish religious schools in Brooklyn.

The DOE launched its probe of the yeshivas in mid-2015 in response to complaints from former students and advocates connected to the group Yaffed, who alleged that little to no instruction in subjects such as English and math was being provided at roughly three dozen Orthodox schools.

In August 2018, after advocates accused the city and Mayor Bill de Blasio of slow-walking the probe, then-Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza wrote a letter to the state Education Department revealing that 15 of 28 yeshivas at the heart of the investigation had refused entry to DOE officials.

State guidelines requiring that education at private schools be “substantially equivalent” to instruction at public schools governed the inquiry, even as those standards have been shifting in recent years.

It wasn’t until December 2019 that Carranza confirmed officials had visited 28 yeshivas, which he identified in a follow-up letter to state education officials, and revealed summary findings without specifying the conditions uncovered at each school.

The investigation found that just two of the yeshivas visited by the DOE could prove they provided “substantially equivalent” instruction to their public school counterparts.

Five of the 28 schools were described as providing an “underdeveloped” level of learning, including some showing “no evidence that English is consistently used as a language of instruction,” according to the update provided to SED.

The City

DOE Excuse Flunks ‘Smell Test’Carranza wrote that his agency was sending a letter to each of the 28 schools “communicating the information, observations, and findings specific to each school.” THE CITY requested copies of those letters under the state’s Freedom of Information Law on Jan. 2, 2020.

More than 10 months later, on Nov. 16, 2020, the DOE provided two of the 28 letters — regarding the schools where instruction was deemed substantially equivalent. Officials denied access to the remaining 26 on the basis that sharing them would “interfere with ongoing law enforcement investigations.”

A month later, THE CITY filed an administrative appeal with the DOE. City education officials denied the appeal on Dec. 28, 2020 — again arguing that the investigation was ongoing and that release of the letters would interfere with the probe.

The City: To Continue reading click here.

NJ Advances Package to Combat Elder Abuse and it is all Fluff and Nonsense!

Dear Reader:

We have contended from the outset that the oversight agencies are ineffective, corrupt, complicit in or facilitators of abuse, neglect and exploitation. Full Stop. We have contended that many of the players within the elder-care guardianship and nursing home context are inextricably intertwined in wrongdoing, most with incestuous relationships with the oversight agencies. We have posited that there is no such thing as reporting if it is left to the good will of those entrusted with the care of the elderly. We maintain that too many people are making too much money for the nonsense legislation to have any substance.

Oversight agencies must be held accountable for their failures. Elder abuse MUST be accompanied by criminal penalties, whether to the guardians, the owners and operators, the magnates, the investors, the employees or the judges and politicians that allow the abuse to continue unchecked. Elder abuse MUST be deemed unacceptable. Full stop. Elders MUST have the power to decide their own destinies. Elders MUST be believed until their statements are proven unbelievable, if that is possible. An Elder’s human dignity MUST be respected before all else and not entrusted in the care of those who lack humanity and conscience.

New Jersey’s four-part legislation pays lipservice to intent but does none of that. It assumes unicorns and rainbows with respect to an industry which is no different that legalized human trafficking. When you build a beautiful house on a flawed foundation the house is doomed. So too is the fluff and nonsense legislation in New Jersey.

Assembly Panel Advances Murphy & Vainieri Huttle Bill Package to Combat Abuse, Neglect & Exploitation of Seniors and Vulnerable Adults

Assembly Panel Advances Murphy & Vainieri Huttle Bill Package to Combat Abuse, Neglect & Exploitation of Seniors and Vulnerable Adults

Measures to Modernize Conservatorships & Guardianships; Address Financial Abuse; and Strengthen Protections for Vulnerable Adults

(TRENTON) – The Assembly Aging and Senior Services Committee on Monday approved a package of four bills sponsored by Assembly Democrats Carol Murphy and Valerie Vainieri Huttle to protect elderly or vulnerable adults from facing abuse, neglect or exploitation.

About one in ten Americans over age 60 have experienced some form of elder abuse, including physical or emotional abuse or financial exploitation. Mental or physical impairments may make them more vulnerable to abuse, and many cases go unreported.

People with disabilities are also at a higher risk of abuse, neglect or exploitation. About 30 percent of individuals with disabilities who need assistance with daily care, maintaining their health and safety, and accessing their communities have experienced some form of mistreatment.

“As we age, many of us will need a support system to help manage our health, finances, transportation and other aspects of life. This is especially true for seniors with dementia or other cognitive impairments” said Murphy (D-Burlington). “Sadly, too often the person trusted with an elderly person’s care ends up taking advantage of them. We must ensure the people caring for our most vulnerable have their best interests at heart, and everyone knows how recognize and report elder abuse.”

“Every person deserves to age with dignity,” said Vainieri Huttle (D-Bergen). “We may face illness, disability or physical decline, but we should never face abuse. By strengthening protections for older adults and our most vulnerable, we are helping to keep our elderly loved ones safe and safeguard our own futures.”

Two bills in the package would modernize existing laws regarding conservatorship and guardianship in New Jersey. The first measure (A-4615) would require proposed conservatees or someone already under conservatorship to have counsel throughout the course of all court proceedings. The court would be required to appoint a counsel if they were ever unrepresented. The counsel would personally interview the conservatee or proposed conservatee within 72 hours before each scheduled hearing focused on conservatorship.

Counsel must also be provided to individuals under guardianships, or wards, as part of the second bill (A-4618).

Insider NJ

Guardianship Abuses, Florida [video]

Abuse of the Elderly – Mama B and Guardianship – a Case in Alabama

“Mama B” Bashinsky Guardianship Abuse Case Goes Back To Alabama Supreme Court

BIRMINGHAM, Ala., March 10, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — Today, legal counsel for the estate of the late Joann “Mama B” Bashinsky, the beloved Alabama philanthropist, announced several developments in the case of the permanent guardianship petition that haunted her for the last 18 months of her life before she passed away on January 3, 2021.

On Friday, Bashinsky’s counsel filed an appeal with the Alabama Supreme Court on one motion challenging an order issued by Judge A. Lee Tucker to pay a guardian ad litem fees for his own attorney on a prior matter. Following their appeal, Judge Tucker hastily ruled on numerous motions that have been delayed for weeks. Most notably, Tucker made a highly unusual ruling to deny the motion to dismiss the case in light of Mrs. Bashinsky’s death, further highlighting the numerous conflicts of interest among those involved in the case, including the judges and petitioners. The family is now forced to have to go to the Alabama Supreme Court once again because Judge Tucker won’t let the case die.

“These new decisions by Judge A. Lee Tucker are extremely disheartening, and confirm the corruption within the Jefferson County guardianship system at the hands of temporary conservator Greg Hawley and  guardian ad litem Ken Guin, as directed first by Judge Alan King and now by Judge Tucker,” said attorney Susan Walker. “In my opinion, his latest rulings show that this court is failing to provide justice and fairness, as the Judge continues a case that has tormented the friends and family of Mama B, who suffered great distress for the last months of her life because of the permanent petition for guardianship and for conservatorship that threatened her finances and independence.”

The case has taken many unseemly twists and turns from the first day Mrs. Bashinsky’s fomer employees, John McKleroy and Patty Townsend, filed a petition to place her under a guardianship the very day she appropriately terminated them. On July 2, 2020, the Alabama Supreme Court issued an opinion declaring the emergency petition failed to establish an emergency and holding Mrs. Bashinsky was denied her constitutional due process rights. Since her death, the burden of exorbitant and unnecessary expenses on her family has endured as they navigate a case that would have typically died with the subject.

“Since the Alabama Supreme Court last saw this case, in my opinion it’s clear that petitioners McKleroy and Townsend along with former temporary conservator Hawley and guardian ad litem Guin are not acting in the best interests of Mrs. Bashinksy, but in their own financial interests, especially considering that they continue to pursue the assets of an elderly widow no longer alive to defend herself,” said attorney Walker. “There is no plausible explanation in my opinion as to why Judge Tucker would drag out the case of a deceased woman other than that it’s in the best interests of his friends in a system ripe with corruption and financial exploitation.”

PRNewswire

Trump’s Highest Bidder, Gertler? Sanctions Reprieve Lifted – Gertler, Magnitsky, DRC

Israeli billionaire Dan Gertler (Screen capture YouTube)

Dan Gertler and the Magnitsky Sanctions, Loopholes, State Sanctioned Violations, Trump, Guiliani and Billions

We have written and opined at great lengths about Dan Gertler, the mining tycoon sanctioned under the Magnitsky Act sanctions and the final gift from President Trump to Gertler, a lifting of those sanctions. Make no mistake, that lifting was unsurprising when coupled with the Guliani Ukraine affair. To those of us who followed the ever-changing political landscape in the DRC, the US’s unbridled support of an otherwise undemocratic election in the DRC, the securities’ firms that played a role in the movement of information, and the tail numbers of Gertler’s planes coupled with the travels of Trump’s personal attorney, Rudolph Guiliani, this political-financial network was foreseeable. It was our opinion then and now, that Guiliani was paid for his liaison services, which were blessed through a web of quasi-legitimate securities’ firms. Beyond that, in what capacity Guiliani was traveling to the Ukraine fairly regularly, and his labyrinthine ties to Ukraine at that time remain the subject of debate.

We have opined about the various loopholes and veritable crawl spaces that have allowed Gertler access to millions, if not billions of dollars, otherwise unavailable under the Magnitsky Sanctions Regime. Some of this money was allegedly owed to Gertler by Glencore. The “praise” bestowed upon Gertler by foreign diplomats is almost embarrassing, but may have been required to get cooperating countries on board with the payment scheme. The workaround was craftily organized by funneling money through a payment system of mazes to Gertler via a series of Euro-based workarounds which required the assistance of the Swiss banking network and US Government intervention. It is unlikely the Swiss would have been involved absent a very public statement by the US. It is our opinion that the loopholes were identified and manipulated by President Trump and, in our opinion, Rudolph Guiliani, Paul Manaford and others within the Trump orbit.

Whether or not we have it all perfectly figured out remains a job for those with far higher pay grades.

While Gertler claims all of his actions in the DRC have been above-board, we think that depends upon whose morality and ethics one is using as the exemplar upon which all else is measured. As we see the world, Gertler’s almost unforgivable use of underpaid members of the DRC to afford him unquantifiable wealth is not a paragon of the divine intervention of his religious system of beliefs. Moreover, Gertler’s willingness to manipulate financial systems such that banks, investment companies and frankly heads of states and countries made his acquisition of wealth all possible, is all the more unsettling.

Guardianship – Just Another Means of Taking Hostages – and Nursing Homes

Nursing Homes Rob The Elderly Of Their Rights With The Use Of Guardianships

Published: 01 Feb

By: Jack Halpern

Guardianship is supposed to be a legal tool, but many nursing homes are abusing it. My Elder can help your family avoid this tragedy!

Nursing homes in New York State have been accused of using ‘guardianship petitions’ as a means to coerce elderly residents into paying outstanding fees.

A startling expose in the New York Times this week discusses a number of instances where nursing homes have requested courts to transfer guardianship away from the family. Ostensibly these requests are prompted by family feuds, suspected embezzlement or just the absence of relatives to help secure Medicaid coverage.

However, judges, legal experts, and others well versed in the guardianship process claim that often the petitions are used as a means of duress.

In a guardianship case last year involving a 94-year-old resident in a Jewish aged care facility, New York Supreme Court judge Alexander John Hunter issued a scathing 11-page critique of the motivations behind the petition made by the nursing home’s management.

In a more recent case, this time involving a family who refused to pay exorbitant rates to a Catholic nursing home, a court evaluator threw out the guardianship petition and questioned the motivations of the facility. The family spent US$10,000 in legal fees fighting the case.

Some nursing homes argue that guardianship petitions are the best way to resolve disputes about payment for care. The alternative is to sue an incapacitated resident who cannot respond.

“When you have families that do not cooperate and an incapacitated person, guardianship is a legitimate means to get the nursing home paid”, said Brett D. Nussbaum, a lawyer for the Catholic nursing home Mary Manning Walsh.

Article published without the permission of the Author. To continue reading on My Elder, click here.

Time to Toss the Granny Killer Immunity Provisions in NY – And Country-Wide

MIDDAY POSTER: NY Dems Move To Repeal Cuomo’s Nursing Home Immunity

New York’s now infamous corporate immunity law for nursing home executives has been placed on the legislative docket for repeal. The law, slipped into last year’s budget by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, shielded nursing homes from liability as they were forced by the governor to accept patients presumed to have COVID into their facilities.

Last Spring, while the national media was celebrating Cuomo, The Daily Poster helped break open the story of Cuomo passing the law after receiving huge campaign donations from the corporate group pushing it. As The Daily Poster reported earlier this week, the law has shielded administrators and executives from liability for a wide range of negligence claims, even those that don’t appear to be directly related to COVID.

To continue reading in The Daily Poster

Borough Park Shomrim Member Hit with Federal Child Rape Charges – Time to Upend the Shomrim –

Jacob Daskal (middle) faces federal charges for coercing a minor into sex.

Borough Park Shomrim leader hit with federal charges for child rape

Federal prosecutors charged the founder of the Borough Park shomrim with a three-count indictment for allegedly coercing a 15-year-old girl to travel for sex, authorities announced on Thursday.

Jacob Daskal, 62, had been charged in New York State court in 2018 for raping the teen victim, and was out on a $75,000 bond, but now the feds have stepped in — hitting him with charges of coercing a minor to engage in illicit sexual conduct, transportation of a minor with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity, and traveling with intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct,

“Daskal, who was almost 60 years old when these crimes were committed, exploited the vulnerability of a young teenager by grooming her for sex and enticing her into having sexual relationships with him,” acting US District Attorney Seth DuCharme said in a statement.

Federal prosecutors say that Daskal — who founded the private safety group that patrols Borough Park in conjunction with the 66th Police Precinct — fostered a sexual relationship with the underaged girl, who abused his home in Brooklyn in 2017.

Daskal also allegedly took the girl to his summer home in upstate New York — crossing state borders into New Jersey along the way, according to court documents. 

The cross-border crimes continued when the victim moved to Chicago, and Daskal allegedly communicated with the victim over Skype and text, asking her to pose nude during video chats and send nude photos, according to the federal complaint. 

On Nov. 5 2017, Daskal traveled to Chicago to visit the victim, where he brought her to a hotel room for sex, prosecutors allege.

“A man who founded an organization aimed at creating a safer community should know the difference between right and wrong,” said FBI Assistant Director-in-Charge William F. Sweeney Jr. 

To continue reading in TheBrooklynPaper

Millions in Cuomo’s War Chest, Donations from Killer Nursing Homes and their Lobbyists and Representatives – The Blood of Covid-19 Death

[EXCERPTED BY LM]

Andrew Cuomo Shielded Killer Nursing Home Executives From Justice

By Joel Warner

Governor Andrew Cuomo offered blanket immunity from prosecution for negligent nursing home executives last year. Now those who lost love ones during the pandemic thanks to those executives’ greed have nowhere to turn. Those who put profit over human life — and Cuomo — need to be held responsible.

As the Daily Poster reported last May, the Cuomo administration quietly inserted the liability shield provision into the state’s 2020 budget bill after a powerful health care industry group that donated more than $1 million to Cuomo’s political machine drafted and lobbied for the law.

The provision was ostensibly designed to help nursing homes as they made difficult decisions in the face of an unprecedented emergency. But the law extended the protections not just to medical staff, but also to corporate executives — and critics worried that the law would allow the facilities’ owners and operators to cut corners and risk people’s lives without repercussions.

As lawmakers pushing to revoke the measure noted in a legislative memo that month, the immunity law “egregiously uses severe liability standards as a means to insulate health care facilities and specifically, administrators and executives of such facilities, from any civil or criminal liability for negligence.”

Now, as Cuomo’s handling of nursing homes during the pandemic has exploded into a national scandal amid revelations of suppressed COVID death counts alongside reported threats against Cuomo critics and allegations of sexual harassment, the Daily Poster has found the law is indeed insulating nursing home administrators and executives from civil or criminal liability for their actions.

Over much of the past year, the provision has apparently had a chilling effect across the state, causing many lawyers to refuse all new nursing home–related negligence cases, whether or not they seem to be directly related to COVID-19, and limiting the scope of other legal actions begun before the pandemic. Though New York has seen more than fifteen thousand nursing home deaths, there have only been a handful of wrongful death cases filed in the state, according to data compiled by the law firm Hunton Andrews Kurth, which has been tracking COVID-related cases.

Joel Warner, Jacobin

“Lobbying Money Well Spent”

On April 3, 2020, as the media was reporting on how New York was becoming a global coronavirus hot spot, Cuomo signed into law the state’s budget bill for the year, which included a little-noticed provision on page 347 that noted that executives, board members, trustees, and other corporate officials at nursing homes and other health care facilities “shall have immunity from any liability, civil or criminal, for any harm or damages alleged to have been sustained as a result of an act or omission in the course of arranging for or providing health care services” related to COVID-19.

The liability shield, which covered both lawsuits and criminal prosecutions, was made retroactive to March 7, 2020. A Cuomo spokesperson would later insist the measure wasn’t due to industry influence — but lobbyists suggested otherwise.

The day before the measure became law, the Greater New York Hospital Association (GNYHA) — a major lobbying group that represents hospital systems, including some that own nursing homes, that has donated more than $1.25 million to Cuomo’s political operation — sent out a memo stating it had “drafted and aggressively advocated for this legislation.”

As GNYHA noted to its members in the announcement, “You and your heroic workers have enough to agonize over without having to worry about liability for decisions and actions made under extraordinarily challenging circumstances.”

The provision’s effect was immediate.

Holly Mosher, a partner at the Friedlander & Mosher, PC law firm in Ithaca, which focuses on nursing home negligence cases, told the Daily Poster that before then, her firm usually followed up on several reports of alleged nursing home abuse or neglect each week. Now, suddenly, they weren’t looking into any potential new cases at all. That included not just allegations of residents getting sick or dying from COVID-19 because of improper conditions, but also claims of negligence that seemed to have little to do with coronavirus at all, such as preventable injuries and bedsores, other than the fact that the incidents occurred in the middle of the pandemic.

To continue reading the article in its entirety, click here.

Nursing Homes, their Attorneys, Cuomo, His Donor Pool and Those Who Reaped the Rewards of their Campaign Contributions

Mapping campaign donations to Andrew Cuomo For New York, Inc. during years 2014-2019. 
OPENTHEBOOKS.COM

Dear Readers:

New York is a cesspool of corruption; and sadly for those of us for whom this State has some sentimentality, we may be deluding ourselves into believing it can be fixed. absent tearing down the entire system of government and rebuilding it. It does not help that there is very little in New York that is transparent and, more to the point, even transparency is shrouded in secrecy. For instance, most states prohibit vendors who have significant state contracts from donating to politicians within the state. Sounds logical. But New York does not have such a prohibition. Couple that with the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling (Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 558 U.S. 310 (2010)), which paved the way for mega-donors to give money in secret, and you have a recipe for unending money-meets politics power brokering. And the players have learned to game the system like a BlackJack card-counter plays a hand. New York has no safeguards against running amok either. And it has.

Moreover, for those of us who misguidedly thought it could not get any worse, Covid-19 made corruption that much easier. While all eyes were on the extraordinary havoc Covid-19 was wreaking on the state, and while many of us chose Cuomo’s news briefings over those of the President at the time, Cuomo was constructing a return to his donors. He had made promises that needed to be kept if he ever wanted to be President. While New Yorkers were dying, Cuomo was devising the “quid pro quo”. Sadly, the real difference between Cuomo and Trump is political sides. Both played to their acolytes similarly. Interestingly, many of Cuomo’s top donors in New York and the greater Tri-State area were also Trump’s top donors. There is an heir of true opportunism in that.

Real Estate moguls who had donated large sums (either themselves or through their attorneys) were given an “essential business” pass to continue building, or operating when all other businesses were shut down. Hospitals and nursing/rehabilitation homes were given the well-touted immunity from any and all liability for deaths that occurred during the height of the Covid-19 spread. It does not matter what was the cause of death. The immunity is very broad. Any accountability for the negligence of nursing home owners, operators and staff, if not gross negligence got a Cuomo signed pass without accountability. We have dubbed those provisions the “Granny Killer Immunity” provisions, and it is noteworthy that these hugely significant provisions were snuck into a well-needed budget bill.

And, for those mega-donors who did not need global sweeps in return for their investment in Cuomo: including exceptions to rules, regulations, standards of behavior or full on immunity, Cuomo returned his donor largesse into important and influential political positions. Some of the megadonor law firms, those responsible for deciding the political slate of Democrats who run in many counties, most notably Kings County were the beneficiaries of client satisfaction. Moreover, to add icing to the cake, the person tasked with investigating the wrongdoing within Cuomo’s administration, notably the nursing homes and the Cuomo sexual harassments allegations is also the beneficiary of many of those donations. Her hands are largely tied, the question is how she will play the political chess game.

It should be clear that where Cuomo did not directly reap the benefits of the nursing home lobby, the major New York hospital chains and the related unions, Cuomo had the benefit of donations from their lawyers and accountants, who stepped in and donated big. Some of the highest donations to Cuomo’s campaign came from law firms representing nursing homes, real estate magnates, construction contractors, their lending banks and finally union members. And, to add insult to injury, some of the top donating law firms also requested and received some of the most extensive PPP loans.

One might consider that the PPP loans actually went to donations to Cuomo’s campaigns if it all comes out in the wash.

We are not providing you with information you could not find on your own. There are countless articles that have questioned the Cuomo donations over the years. Few have connected the dots. We are directing you to the most intriguing of the articles, but there are many more. The following we have only excerpted . We encourage you to read the entire article. It tells an important historical story of who has been scratching who’s back, the graft, the political PAC’s that help to make it possible and the incestuous web of political ties and money. And… this was before Covid-19.

The following is from Forbes October 2020.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo Reaped $6.2 Million In Campaign Cash From 347 State Vendors Who Pocketed $7 Billion Since 2014

[EXCERPTED]

Our auditors at OpenTheBooks.com found 347 state vendors that gave $6.2 million in political donations to Cuomo over a six-year period (2014-2019). Meanwhile, these companies reaped $7 billion in state payments.

These donations represented the equivalent of more than half of the current cash on hand – $11.9 million – in the governor’s campaign committee as of 12/31/2019, according to disclosures.

We created an interactive map displaying by ZIP Code all of the governor’s campaign contributions since 2014. Just click a pin (ZIP Code) and scroll down to see the results that render in the chart beneath the map.

Hospitals – Covid-Positive Patients Transferred To Nursing Homes

The Greater New York Hospital Association (Association) funneled $1 million to Cuomo’s re-election through the state Democratic party in 2018. That same year, the Association and the healthcare union, 1199SEIU, backed Cuomo’s healthcare “reforms” and spent $5.9 million lobbying in Albany.

By February 2020, Cuomo appointed the Association’s past chair and board member Michael Dowling along with 1199SEIU President Dennis Rivera as co-chairmen of the “Medicaid Redesign Team.” (State Medicaid was $4 billion in the red because of Cuomo’s accounting gimmicks.)

Just six weeks before the governor’s appointment, Michael Dowling gave Cuomo a $5,000 campaign donation (12/14/19). (Dowling is also the CEO of Northwell Health – which received $10 million in state payments in 2019.)

Twenty-eight days before the governor made 1199SEIU president Dennis Rivera co-chairman of his Medicaid Team, the union gave $15,000 to Cuomo’s re-election fund (1/6/2020). Since 2014, 1199SEIU backed Cuomo with political endorsements and $95,250 in campaign cash.

Real Estate, Development, and Construction Companies

Between years 2011 and 2020, real estate tycoon Scott Rechler, owner of RXR Realty, LLC, his wife, children, and affiliated LLC businesses gave $540,000 to Cuomo’s campaign fund. Family donations amounted to $385,000 and multiple LLCs funded another $155,000.

Scott’s brother, Todd, Chief Construction and Development Officer at RXR Realty, also contributed an additional $90,000 to Cuomo during the period.

We found four real estate leases owned by RXR Realty affiliated LLCs and signed by two state agencies: Office of Inspector General and Commission on Judicial Conduct. These leases were signed in the years 2014, 2019, and 2020 and are worth $41 million with $13.7 million already paid out. (Note: In 2014, RXR bought the building and the state agencies were existing tenants.)

The public has a right to know whether Cuomo was serving the public interest or his private political interest when his administration negotiated these leases. Every single transaction is a potential conflict of interest.

Furthermore, in 2011, the governor appointed Rechler to the Board of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, where he became chairman. In 2017, the governor nominated Rechler to the Board of the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) and he served until 2019.

Big Four Accounting Firms – $360,000 in campaign cash

The independent accounting firms, Deloitte; Ernst & Young (EY); KPMG; and PriceWaterhouseCooper collectively gave Gov. Cuomo $360,000 in campaign donations during years 2014-2019. The firms reaped $258.8 million in state payments. 

Between 2013 and 2015, New York regulatory agencies and the governor investigated Deloitte, PwC, and EY for alleged wrongdoing. The firms paid $45 million and other penalties to settle the various claims.

Are these firms “independent” auditors with a fiduciary responsibility to taxpayers? We found that the firms coordinated their campaign cash to the governor giving the same amounts on the same days in the same years.

Three of the Big Four – PwC, KPMG, and EY – each gave the exact same amount of campaign cash to Cuomo during the six-year period ($88,333.33). Deloitte contributed another $105,000.

Andrew Cuomo survived without indictment and denies any connection between campaign contributions … [+]
 
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For-Profit Nursing Homes Should be de-Licensed- The Elderly Need Protection From Quantifiable Valuation Over Humanity!

Dear Reader:

We have been railing about for-profit nursing and rehabilitation facilities for years: when an elder care facility, any version of elder care, is for-profit, there is utter lawlessness. Money flows like water through a sieve, unencumbered by laws or oversight.

A thorough review of the names of for-profit nursing homes and rehabilitation facilities in New York, cross-checked with PPP Loans reveals that many of them (and/or their attorneys) were some of the largest recipients of PPP Loans during the first round of Covid relief. The second round remains to be seen. They will likely be the first to get PPP Loan forgiveness even though many of them did little, or more accurately nothing to protect their employees or their patients. In fact, the word “nothing” here is quite forgiving. It would mean a passive omission, simple apathy.

To put the narrative in a more truthful perspective, many of the for-profit nursing homes fed their own pockets with the Covid-19 funding. That money should have guaranteed staffing but they were underpaying wages or not hiring. And, many of the country’s nursing homes are owned by the same or similar groups of owners, and they actively manipulated and continue to manipulate the system to profit from Covid-19. Yes! To profit!

Many nursing homes (though not all) take out life insurance on their patients with them as beneficiaries of the policy, when the patient signs in. If that patients makes it past 30-days to 60-days depending upon the policy, the death of the patient generates income to the homes. It is a win/win. Well, the insurers are out – but there is little oversight there either. These are small money policies that generally are unregulated by the insurance industry.

LeadingAge, the “elder care facility advocacy group” believes that the failure of many of these homes cannot be fixed by oversight it can only be fixed by adding money. The comments by LeadingAge imply that there is not enough money to help these facilities take appropriate care of their patients. That is a vile and utterly false interpretation of events. The business model is profit above all else. A view from 30,000 feet shows his analysis doesn’t match the math with respect to many, if not all, of the for-profit elder care facilities.

The problem, in this blogger’s humble opinion: YOU CANNOT BUY MORALITY. IF YOU ARE LACKING IN A MORAL COMPASS, THERE IS NO AMOUNT OF MONEY IN THE WORLD THAT WILL FIX THAT. ADDITIONAL MONEY SIMPLY FEEDS THE MONSTER!

The nursing and rehabilitation home industry is a well-played, well-gamed and manipulated system run by super savvy individuals or groups who know how to game every aspect of the operation. Many are partially owned by the attorneys who represent them and some of those attorneys, at least in NY, help decide who runs on political tickets. These “moblike” industry is a web of somewhat incestuous industry connections. The Elder Care Centers will contract out linen and food services to friends, family or even themselves (a rose by any other name…). They buy drugs from distribution or drug companies owned or operated by their friends, colleagues or even their own corporate enterprises who provide a scratch on their proverbial backs. Foodservice is provided by friends, family or interrelated entities. Mobile medicine is provided by interrelated companies.

These facilities use inexpensive sharps for things like insulin and other injectable drugs that often result in more pain to the patient but less pain to the bottom line. Many reuse insulin or other injectable drug vials but charge each patient for their own, sometimes stockpiling the extra meds and sidestepping laws that prevent the reuse of needles or vials. Instead of giving their patients the name-brand drugs they may have used before admission to their facilities, they give them the generics and file claims for name-brand. They often fail to provide necessary services: occupational, speech, physical and other therapies, they claim to provide those services and bill for them; but many of the patients will attest to what they are not getting and therapy is on the top of that list. They charge for doctor’s visits that don’t happen or are substituted by RN’s, NP’s or PA’s so the doctors are often paid multiple times for the same hour in a day – a reward for often misdiagnosing ailments or over-diagnosing meds.

Facilities that have specialized Dialysis centers associated with their services have little reason to protect a diabetic’s kidneys when a slow destruction of the kidneys yields greater profit. Dialysis is far more profitable then kidney treatment and insulin.

These numbers can be obtained for the asking by law enforcement or anyone reading this blog. Nursing homes and rehabilitations centers need strict oversight absent loopholes. For-profit nursing homes need to be de-licensed – all of them. The ownership of the homes is available on public links. The links between owners in different states can be found by cross checking ownership state-by-state. We have done this analysis with respect to about 30 of the largest of the and most mafia-like ownership groups, which, by the way, own some of the country’s worst nursing homes. We are not stating anything that is not otherwise publicly available and we have been making these claims for years.

No one should be listening to the lobbyists. They have an agenda and quality care for elderly and vulnerable individuals is a far too altruistic endeavor. The lobbyists also have skin-in-the-game and it amounts to a fortune!

New York Assembly releases package of nursing home reform bills

The Democratic-led New York state Assembly released a package of nearly 20 nursing home accountability bills Friday, aimed at tightening restrictions on the hundreds of for-profit facilities.

Among the 19 bills is one sponsored by Assembly Health Chair Dick Gottfried (D-Manhattan) that would prohibit the creation of any new for-profit homes and impose a morratorium expanding the capacity of existing homes.

“Lots of people have been discovering that there are enormous problems in our nursing homes. COVID may have brought them to light and made them worse but a lot of us know those problems have been there for many, many, many years,” Gottfried said during Thursday’s remote Joint Legislative Budget Hearing on Health. 

He railed against the for-profit industry in an interview later Thursday evening with NY1, arguing those nursing homes often have higher infection rates and instances of bed sores among patients.

“We’re not going to license any more for-profit nursing homes or for-profit beds,” he said. “We should stop the creation of for-profit beds…you should [operate a nursing home] to care for people not because you want to make money.”

Right now, there are 401 for-profit, privately owned nursing homes out of the roughly 619 in the Empire State, according to a January report from the office of state Attorney General Letitia James.

To continue reading in The New York Post

Granny Killer Immunity Not Just Lobbyists, But Nursing Care Magnates, Also Donated to the Campaigns of Cuomo and James: Dear Mr. Kim

Dear Legislator Kim:

Your piece in The Guardian speaks to the lobbyists who donated vast sums of money to Governor Cuomo’s campaign, thereby explaining why a toxic immunity provision “The Granny Killer Immunity” cleverly wound up a part New York’s budget. But your piece fails to mention the nursing home owners, operators and managers, not only those who run the facilities but those who own the property and the buildings, the magnates, who also donated hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not collectively millions, to the campaigns of both Governor Cuomo and Attorney General Tish James. While she has promised to investigate, don’t hold your breath. And her pre-emptive strike of a promise to investigate means violating the relationship with her donor pool and voting bloc. In our opinion, it likely “ain’t gonna happen.”

Those of us who have been following these stories for years, even absent Covid-19, know the numbers, we know the finances, we know the attorneys representing the homes and the individuals, sometimes at odds, and we know about their donations to politicians, to lobbyists, to political parties, to anyone who could help increase profits and minimize attention. Some of those same attorneys are also instrumental in getting Democrats elected statewide. It is not just the lobbyists who wanted the benefit of the Granny Killer Immunity protections, it’s also everyone in the food chain who makes money from the industry. And the net profit is almost unquantifiable.

Legislator Kim, in addition to everything else, with immunity came an additional source of profit – the sale of inventory. Many nursing homes at the very start of the pandemic had a stockpile of PPE, just as they should have. They obtained that equipment from Medicare, Medicaid, Insurance, private pay, accumulated over years, all a cost of doing business. All things considered that stockpile should be a requirement of the industry. But, many did not use that equipment in their own nursing homes and rehabilitation centers to protect their patients and staff, instead they raped their own facilities of that protective gear and sold it on gray markets.

Let me restate: when it seemed there was going to be a shortage, and potentially a salable need for Personal Protective Equipment, many nursing home owners and operators began to drain PPE from their properties. This meant they were making money off of the deprivation of their employees and those entrusted in their care to make an additional buck. And it was not just a single dollar. N95 masks were being sold from warehouses in New York and New Jersey to hospitals in California willing to pay upwards of $5.50/mask, out of fear of a shortage. There were brokers and middle men and procurement officers all benefiting from these sales, some unknowingly breaking the law and some irreverent.

Guardianship in Massachusetts “Medical Kidnapping” – an Attorney’s Accounts and her Subsequent Suspension

Attorney Lisa Siegel Balanger, Health Impact News – suspended for 2 years for speaking out

Note to Reader: Lisa Siegel Belanger, the attorney who should be honored for her courage has been suspended for two (2) years. Why? She and her sister wanted to get her father out of the Massachusettes Guardianship system. On the bright side, they did not have the same leverage, a Bar license, to use against her sister. Please read the story. Please also note that Netflix removed her story. That said, “I CARE A LOT” tells the same story.

The real perpetrators of elder abuse & exploitation: Medical kidnapping by state public officials

by Lisa Siegel Belanger, Esq.
Health Impact News

More than 30 years ago, throughout the United States, state governments created agencies known as “elder protective services.”

As seen by such designated titles, these agencies are made to appear as though state governments are helpful resources for citizens.

However, nothing could be further from the truth.

These so-called protective agencies are, in fact, wolves in sheep’s clothing that I can attest to from not only my direct personal experiences, but also from years of research.

Details of my family’s ongoing travesty of justice can be found at FreeMarvin.com. (See also: Massachusetts Senior Citizen and Attorney Medically Kidnapped – Estate Plundered – Represents National Epidemic.)

Upon years of my reviewing and obtaining voluminous court documentation throughout the Commonwealth of Massachusetts—particularly, in my professional experience as an attorney, there is no doubt, whatsoever, that public officials have been operating a racketeering enterprise through the probate and family courts, feeding off our most vulnerable citizens, the elderly.

These public officials do so through physical and financial exploitation of the elderly. [1]

In 2015, I filed a federal civil action in the District Court of Massachusetts providing overwhelming and irrefutable documentation that state elder protective agencies is one cog of many in a long-embedded governmental money laundering and embezzlement enterprise.

“Adult/elder protective services” is a money-making industry, which should set off nonstop warning bells to the public—especially, given the revelation of the magnitude of absolute corruption by government officials with hard cold supporting indisputable facts to the credit of our 45th President Donald J. Trump. (Editor’s note – See:  National Health Care Fraud Takedown Results in Charges Against Over 412 Individuals Responsible for $1.3 Billion in Fraud Losses – Largest Health Care Fraud Enforcement Action in Department of Justice History.)

As laid out in my 2015 federal racketeering complaint, illicit monies are funneled through kickbacks arising from prescribed medications (especially antipsychotics) and fraudulent billings for Medicare & Medicaid services.

The indisputable fact is that these state “protective” agencies have a financial incentive to unlawfully initiate court proceedings in the Probate & Family Courts to have our family members judicially declared wards of the state.

For example, Medicaid services are reimbursable for “all of the activities involved in an APS (Adult protective services) investigations of allegations of abuse.” [2]

The Medicaid program process is called Administrative Claiming. For “non-providers,” funds for APS investigations are provided by Title XIX Medicaid Administration.

UNDER SEC. 2042. [42 U.S.C. 1397m-1], Social Security also provides funds specific to investigating reported elder abuse via the Department of Health & Human Services. In 2011, $3 million dollars from Social Security was funded for “investigative” services, and $4 million each year from 2012-2014.

As evidenced,

medical providers and nonmedical entities receive kickbacks for the mere reporting of elder abuse.

Add to that, medical providers have even more of a financial incentive to facilitate reports of elder abuse where they have a subsequent and additional steady stream of income to be made through providing medical services.

The way to keep that continuous flow of income, people are involuntarily forced into the Probate & Family Courts by state “protective” agencies where they ensue formal court proceedings to declare people “wards of the state” upon which they are then routinely admitted into rehabilitation and/or nursing home facilities against their will.

This is all facilitated by elders being judicially determined to be “incapacitated.”

As shown, the medical community works hand-in-hand with judges and attorneys of the Probate & Family courts to literally abduct our family members by design for pure greed.

These public officials use these court proceedings to do so by claimed “mental health” issues and/or physical illness. Through the Government Accountability Office’s (GAO) own published reports, state agencies guised as “protective services” have an established pattern of profiting from dismantling the family unit for more than 30 years nationwide.

Once elders are officially deemed “wards of the state” by Probate & Family Court judges, due to state protective agencies use to hook their claws into our family members, the governmental reign of terror is embedded through these judges appointing guardians and conservators to take absolute control over “the ward.”

At that point, the elder is then stripped of all individual freedoms, including personal decisions involving medical, financial or otherwise.

There is an irrefutable and well-documented pattern of court appointed guardians isolating the ward from family and friends, so as to facilitate involuntary drugging of the ward with antipsychotics and other Big-Pharma medications through subterfuge with the ultimate objective of liquidating the elder’s estate and to use the elder as a means to funnel funds via kickbacks and Medicare & Medicaid fraud.

Do NOT Call Elder Abuse “Hotlines”!

Even more alarmingly, for decades, state Attorney General Offices have continuously bombard citizens with “public service announcements” urging citizens to call “hot lines” to report abuse of elders.

Often times these calls to “elder abuse” hot lines are made “anonymously” with obvious underlying ill-motives, while other citizens are conned into thinking that they are going to be provided help to keep their family unit together when the state government has an established blatant and flagrant pattern of doing the exact opposite—they overtly seek to dismantle the family unit.

Showing the true motives of the offices of the Attorney Generals, they disturbingly blast a narrative that the majority of elder exploitation supposedly occurs by family members. For example, see: [SOURCE REMOVED]

Established evidence shows that governmental abduction of family members involves all ages, all socio-economic backgrounds, and all ethnicities.

My family’s personal miscarriage of justice is a prime example that no one is beyond the clutches of this long-embedded systemic criminal enterprise.

Overwhelming court documentation shows that due process for accused family members is nonexistent.

In fact, it is business as usual for these public officials to fabricate and manufacture information to abduct our family members.

Don’t make the tragic mistake of thinking that state governmental medical kidnapping can’t happen to YOUR family.

Some short & fast tips to help avoid state governmental intrusion into your family:

• Do not initiate any proceeding in the probate & family court system
• Do not use services offered by state protective services
• Do not use services offered by local municipal organizations claiming to help the elderly, such as Council of Aging
• Do not call Abuse Hotlines
• Do not attend “free” publicly offered estate planning seminars

Seemingly, it is human nature for people to want to avoid horrifying topics of conversation like medical kidnapping—not wanting to even conceive of the thought that this could happen to their family.

People tend to bury their heads in the sand, but in reality, such reflex worsens the problem.

A unified and cohesive movement by we, citizens, for accountability, is so needed where the insidiousness in which governmental medical kidnapping is so deep. If not now, when?

Comment on this article at MedicalKidnap.com.

bout the Author

Lisa Siegel Belanger, Esq.

Education: Massachusetts School of Law, J.D.; Emerson College, M.A. in Communications; University of Massachusetts at Amherst, B.B.A. in Finance. bar admissions

Bar Admissions: Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts; U.S. District Court, District of Massachusetts; United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit; United States Supreme Court.

Belanger Law Office

People’s Center for Law & Justice

Adult Medical Kidnapping Stories

References

[1]  Belanger v. BNY Mellon et al. U.S. District Court of Massachusetts Docket No. 1:15cv10198-ADB http://www.belangerlawoffice.com/free-marvin/federal-civil-action-2015/

[2] National Adult Protective Services Association, APS Administrator Briefing Paper: Alternate Sources of Funding for APS Programs, prepared by Karl urban for the NAPSA Policy Committee (2015)

MASSACHUSETTS BOARD OF BAR EXAMINERS INFORMATION:

https://www.casemine.com/judgement/us/5e9435324653d0752bc96c0f

Massachusetts Board of Bar Overseers v. Belanger

Plaintiff:	Massachusetts Board of Bar Overseers
Defendant:	Lisa Siegel Belanger
Case Number:	1:2020cv10445
Filed:	March 4, 2020
Court:	US District Court for the District of Massachusetts
Presiding Judge:	Indira Talwani
Nature of Suit:	Other Statutory Actions
Cause of Action:	28:1446
Jury Demanded By:	None

 RSS Track this DocketDocket Report

From Boston Broadside

It’s All True: “I Care a Lot”… You Really Do Not Care. Guardianship, Nursing Homes and Covid-19

Dear Reader:

Anyone familiar with this blog knows that the cornerstone of the Lost Messiah blog has been, from its inception, the deplorable condition of nursing homes and the abuses of patients within those homes. And the fact that so many of them are run by Orthodox or ultra-Orthodox Jews just makes it worse.

Judaism is founded on the principle of humanity, the sanctity of life, charity and human decency. To criticize the ownership of these nursing homes is not to be anti-Semitic. It is to have a conscience. Anyone not critical of the deplorable condition within many of the country’s nursing homes, New York’s response to Covid-19, the lack of Federal oversight of nursing homes, the endless flow of money from nursing home magnates to politicians and/or to judges and/or to doctors and hospitals and social workers and guardians is to be in my mind, blind or morally bankrupt. That is a full stop.

It was not until recently that I learned to understand the magnitude of the nursing home problem when factoring in guardianship. I did not know. Now that I do, I am just sad. I have seen for myself how it all plays out and it is devastating. Social workers in hospitals are paid to call attention to patients who provide easy targets for guardians, doctors are paid to provide diagnoses like Alzheimer’s, behavioral maladies, mental incapacity or other conditions. Judges are either blindly trusting of guardians or believing of what they are told or are part of the system that awards custody to guardians. Guardians stick patients into nursing homes with which they are connected. When all else fails, or a lawyer willing to stick a thorn in someone’s side comes in, Patient Care Intake Reports are tailored to direct the ward into a particular nursing home usually the one that is in some way connected to the guardian, whether through ownership or a system of payments. Either the ward has problems that the unconnected home cannot handle or the ward’s insurance is not the right kind. It’s all in the narrative. Many guardians are connected to some of the most deplorable nursing homes; and it is to those homes that some proudly send their wards. In other words, they are paid to fill a bed and reward the elderly cash-cow with confinement. It’s all in a day’s work. And it should be noted, the financial connections are publicly available in most states albeit hard to find.

The pockets are so well lined and the wheels are turning constantly, a well oiled corrupt and broken system. The flow of money is a steady stream. The process has been worked out to the most fundamental, almost atomic levels. Politicians are provided with hefty donations. In New York Judges are elected, they too benefit from the donations they receive. The methods of trying to get someone out of guardianship or out of a deplorable nursing home, one in which a ward is placed by a court appointed guardian runs slowly, if at all. So while the system of harming the elderly runs smoothly, the possibility of a correction saunters along at a snail’s pace.

Judges frequently accept the words of guardians at face value, even when it should be apparent that the guardians are dishonest (to put it mildly). Court appointed attorneys, many of them, have been a cog in the wheel of the system for so long that they do not even know the system is broken, or alternatively, they are part of the influencers helping to create certainty that the system will keep running, and…. unencumbered.

Covid-19 has made the problems that much worse. Patients in nursing homes cannot get visitors. There is no oversight, none. The foxes run the henhouses. And the money flows…

The movie “I Care a Lot” a controversial work of art in my opinion, does not delve deeply enough into the abuses of the elderly within the guardianship structure. It does not approach the confounding ability of judges to turn their heads as they grant guardianship of healthy people to individuals who, for lack of a better word, traffic in human lives. The system is broken. From where I sit, it might only work if guardians are rewarded for setting people who do not need their assistance free. Pay someone a ransom, of sorts. Indeed, there are people who need help, need someone to watch over them; and there are perhaps guardians who really care, for whom money is not the ultimate goal. If so, they the unicorns.

But without attention, oversight, accountability and a complete overhaul, the system will keep running. There is simply too much money involved. A human being is worth thousands. And “I Care a Lot” should be teaching legislators, both state and federal a very important lesson: the system needs to be torn down and rebuilt. The guardians need to be stopped. The nursing homes need to be held accountable.

The elderly caught in the system are being abused, treated like animals. Many would have more rights if they attacked their captors and wound up in jail. It is simply a sick reality.

And attorneys who might be helpful in the area of setting people free have the threat of disbarment personal harm hanging over their heads. The system is broken. Without tearing it down, it likely will not get fixed.

Netflix “I Care a Lot”

I Care a Lot

2021 | R | 1h 58m | Dark ComediesA court-appointed legal guardian defrauds her older clients and traps them under her care. But her latest mark comes with some unexpected baggage.Starring:Rosamund Pike, Peter Dinklage, Eiza González

It’s payback time for the all-American swindler in Netflix’s ‘I Care a Lot’

You can make a lead character reprehensible — even repellent — and still hold on to an audience, but you’d better not make her dull. “I Care a Lot” is a pitch-black karmic comedy of bad behavior and worse payback; it made a stir at this year’s online Sundance festival and landed unexpectedly on Netflix last week. It features just about the worst person imaginable, a woman who bilks senior citizens out of their life savings by becoming their court-appointed guardian. But in Rosamund Pike’s chilly, hollow central performance you may find it difficult to care at all.

Continue reading in The Boston Globe

Netflix’s ‘I Care a Lot’ should worry you

A stranger knocks on the door. The older woman who answers the door is informed that the visitor is now her legal guardian and will make all decisions for her. Within days, the older woman has been placed in a nursing home and her home sold so that the stranger may profit.

It’s a perfect opening for a psychological thriller. In fact, it is the opening for Netflix’s new featured movie “I Care a Lot,” starring Rosamund Pike as Marla, a ruthlessly ambitious woman who has made a business out of exploiting older adults. Her method: petitioning a local court to appoint her as emergency guardian for older adults whom she alleges cannot make decisions for themselves.  

Unfortunately, the plot of “I Care a Lot” — despite its share of plot twists and theatrics — is not as far-fetched as it might seem. Every state allows courts to appoint a third party (called a “guardian” or “conservator”) to make decisions for someone the court determines is at risk because they lack the ability to make decisions for themselves. The process can provide needed protection to those who are unable to care for themselves. Yet it also has real costs. Not only do individuals for whom guardians are appointed lose the right to make some or nearly all decisions for themselves, but reports of unscrupulous guardians using the system to exploit vulnerable adults are far too common.  

This exploitation is made possible, in part, by outdated state laws. Take Marla’s first “trick:” petitioning for a guardianship without telling her elderly mark. State guardianship laws permit courts to appoint “emergency guardians” without notice to either the person alleged to need a guardian or family or friends who might come to their defense. Even when state laws say that individuals are entitled to notice before a guardian is appointed, courts can (and do) waive giving that notice. And long-term guardians are also routinely appointed without the subject of the proceeding being present in court.  

Continue reading: The Hill

NURSING HOMES:

HHS must investigate alleged Cuomo nursing home deaths cover-up, House Republican urges

EXCLUSIVE – Rep. Doug Lamborn, R-Colo., demanded that the Department of Health and Human Services investigate New York nursing home deaths, citing the state attorney general’s report that Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration may have undercounted nursing home coronavirus deaths by as much as 50%.

Fox News

Nursing Homes, Once Hotspots, Far Outpace U.S. in Covid Declines

Throughout the pandemic, there has been perhaps nowhere more dangerous than a nursing home. The coronavirus has raced through some 31,000 long-term care facilities in the United States, killing more than 163,000 residents and employees and accounting for more than a third of all virus deaths since the late spring.

But for the first time since the American outbreak began roughly a year ago — at a nursing care center in Kirkland, Wash. — the threat inside nursing homes may have finally reached a turning point.

Continue reading in The New York Times

COUNTERPOINT:

Ignore the movies; guardians really do care a lot | Opinion

Nurse Ratched does not reflect the caring, self-sacrificing nursing profession. Richard Gere’s nefarious legal tactics in “Chicago” would get a real attorney disbarred. Steve Martin’s sadistic, nitrous-oxide-huffing Orin Scrivello in “Little Shop of Horrors” is certainly not representative of the dental profession. Similarly, Pike’s portrayal of guardianship is a performance designed to engage viewers and generate an emotional response, but it is not rooted in reality. All of these are examples of art created to tug at viewers’ emotions to make the respective films more captivating.

SunSentinel Opinion Piece

When Will Religious Leaders…. Crickets and Rabbi Greer Loses at S.Ct. Level

This is being reposted with the permission of the author. We have also posted Noodles’ donation page. It is separate from ours but we ask that you support your bloggers.

Larry Noodles has posted extensively on the Rabbi Daniel Greer case. He may be one of the foremost authorities on that subject and one of the major figures instrumental in the Greer conviction and in the corresponding civil suit victories.

The child who was abused by Greer may have Noodles to thank, at least in some small part, for the justice he sought and won. It is our hope that by publicizing this case, Rabbi Daniel Greer will be swiftly returned to prison to spend the remainder of his sentence behind bars and NOT in home-confinement, where he has been since Covid-19 provided him an excuse for release.

The child that he abused has a lifetime enchained by memories. Twelve years of Greer’s life is but a small piece of a life spent. Having said all of that, we must pose this question to our readers. Where are the Religious Leaders who should be speaking out. They should be acknowledging the tragedy in their midst. They should be expressing the shame and horror of the Greer case. They should be supporting victims. Instead… crickets. That, in and of itself, is a tragedy.

GREER’S SUPREME COURT PETITION DENIED

 January 25, 2021  Larry Noodles 

Comments 1 Comment

The United States Supreme Court declined to hear “Rabbi” Daniel Greer’s appeal of the $21 million civil verdict entered against him almost three years ago in Federal Court. Greer filed a petition for certification before the Supreme Court after he had lost on appeal at the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. Greer’s attorneys argued on appeal that the verdict was “excessive” and “shocking” and should either be completely set aside or reduced. The Second Circuit held the following: “The amount of compensatory damages is undoubtedly high, but we are not persuaded that a new trial or remittitur (reduction) is warranted under Connecticut law. The award here is not excessive when compared to the awards in the cases cited above. Here, the record indicates that EM suffered repeated abuse for approximately three years, from the time he was fourteen until he was seventeen years old. At certain points, EM was abused for hours at a time, on a weekly basis. The first time Greer abused EM, he plied EM with alcohol, pretended to care about EM and his family, acknowledged EM’s parents’ financial struggles, and then kissed him. Eventually the abuse included oral sex, anal sex, mutual masturbation, and watching pornography together — while EM was a sophomore, junior, and senior in high school and Greer was a 60-something year old man.”

The New Haven Police arrested Greer a few months after the civil verdict of $20 million entered in the child rape case. If Greer had won the civil case I don’t believe that the State’s Attorneys Office would have filed the criminal case. If Greer had offered the victim a settlement, long before the civil case was filed, a civil case would have never been filed.

Greer’s attorneys also argued on appeal that the trial judge’s jury instructions pertaining to Greer’s refusal to answer questions based on his right against self incrimination was improper. The trial judge instructed the jury that they could make negative inferences against Greer due to his failure to answer difficult questions on cross examination. The Second Circuit listed the questions Greer refused to answer: Greer refused to answer whether he “sexually abused and assaulted other minors including Avi Hack” whether he “taught religious and secular studies, communal service, ethics, theology and Jewish history,” whether he “forced EM to have sex with him when he was a child at various locations in New Haven apartments he owned,” whether “he had molested EM in Greer’s bedroom” whether he “had sex with EM at a motel in Branford” whether he “forced EM to have sex with him at a motel in Paoli” whether he forced EM to have sex with him when EM was a child at a hotel in Philadelphia,” whether he “had sex with EM when he was a child at land in Hamden…”

Greer was sentenced to 20 years of incarceration suspended after 12 after he was convicted of child molestation. Greer is currently on home confinement, after he was recently released due to COVID19 in the prisons. Greer’s case will be reviewed again on February 1, by Judge Alander. Greer may or may not go back to jail. Eventually Greer will have to go to jail and spend 12 years in the custody of the Department of Corrections. Greer has already registered as a sex offender. Greer is allowed to leave his abode in order to go to doctor appointments and appointments with his attorney. A local recently told me that she saw Greer driving around in his minivan in his Edgewood neighborhood. Greer used to be known as the “Mayor of Edgewood.” Greer is now known as “The Pedophile of Edgewood.”

Greer was tried and incarcerated just before the pandemic. Greer has been in and out of prison ever since, due to issues in the prison related to the pandemic, and Greer’s age. Greer is 80 years old. At one point Greer’s son Ezi Greer drove his father to the Superior Court to turn him in to the Marshal. I was there and took pictures. I was shocked that Ezi drove his father to the prison. During the civil trial an expert testified that he had evidence that Ezi was molested by his father. Ezi Greer was active in politics in New Haven for many years, along with his brother Rabbi Dov Greer. Dov, Ezi and Avi Hack also helped run Greer’s yeshiva, where EM was enrolled. Avi Hack was also molested by Greer. Avi, Dov and Ezi protected Daniel Greer for years while Greer attracted minors to his yeshiva for the purposes of rape and abuse. After “Rabbi” Greer was sued Dov moved to Long Island, Ezi moved to Waterbury, and Avi moved to Providence RI. Avi’s father Harold Hack, who also protected Greer for year, also moved to Waterbury. Greer got Harold a job at the City of New Haven. Harold’s daughter is married to Ezi Greer.

Ezi, Avi, Dov and Harold refused to testify against Greer at Greer’s civil and criminal trials. I contacted numerous potential witnesses to testify against Greer in the criminal trial. A few showed up and testified against Greer. One testified that he was a classmate of EM at the high school and that he suspected that EM was being molested by Greer at the time he was in school. Another testified that Greer tried to molest him. A few others wanted to testify but found it too emotionally painful to show up in court and testify. I was surprised that EM had the strength to testify at the civil trial and the criminal trial. Greer’s lawyer William Ward mercilessly attacked EM at the civil trial, yelling at him calling him a “LIAR” and a “THIEF.” Greer’s lawyer Willie the Dow at the criminal trial was more respectful and didn’t yell and scream at the victim. The Dow probably learned from Ward’s mistake, attacking the victim, victim blaming, did not work out very well for Ward.

PLEASE HELP NOW! If you wish to help the Larry Noodles website defray the costs of court documents, transcripts, depositions, investigations & research, and make a tax deductible contribution to this non profit organization:  First Amendment Watchdogs Incorporated, 516 Ellsworth Ave, New Haven, CT 06511.  EIN number 83-0873639. Or go to this link and make a donation with your credit card or PAYPAL: DONATE

If you have been ordered to surrender to a correctional institution, and are in need of advice, counseling, contacts, and information please contact me, everything will be kept strictly confidential: lawrencedressler@gmail.com or give me a call at 2037108137

When Do We Stop Defending the Indefensible? – Malka Leifer and Adass, when Will Adass be Accountable?

Government-funded chaplaincy organisation will offer services to Malka Leifer

A Jewish charity will offer chaplaincy services to alleged paedophile Malka Leifer when she returns to Australia, a decision that has angered some members of the religious community.

The Age has confirmed Ms Leifer will be offered support from the charity Jewish Prison Chaplaincy Victoria, a group contracted by Corrections Victoria to assist every Jewish person in the state’s system and support prisoners “to observe and grow while in prison”.

Corrections Victoria appointed the chaplain, independent of the organisation.

The charity’s role is controversial because it is led by Benjamin Koppel, the president of the Adass Israel Congregation, part of a small ultra-orthodox group of about 150 families based in Elsternwick and Ripponlea where Ms Leifer worked.

Mr Koppel was president of the Adass Israel Congregation when Ms Leifer left Australia in 2008, 24 hours after she was accused of sexually molesting some of the students and sacked by the board.

He [Mr. Koppel] was questioned in the Supreme Court in 2015 about the decision to hire Ms Leifer amid allegations she travelled to Israel with the assistance of the Adass board. However, there is no evidence or allegations to suggest Mr Koppel helped Ms Leifer, or knew about plans to help her leave for Israel.

To continue reading, click here.

The Attorney and His “Flips” – Do your Due Diligence Before Investing!

U.S. Attorneys » Eastern District of New York » NewsSHAREDepartment of JusticeU.S. Attorney’s OfficeEastern District of New York

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEWednesday, January 27, 2021

Brooklyn Attorney Charged With Defrauding Real Estate Investors

Defendant Allegedly Misappropriated At Least $4 Million From His Victims

A criminal complaint was unsealed today in federal court in Brooklyn charging Shimon Rosenfeld, an attorney admitted to practice law in the State of New York since 1987, with defrauding multiple investors of at least $4 million by falsely claiming he was investing their funds in real estate opportunities.  Rosenfeld was arrested this morning and made his initial appearance this afternoon via videoconference before United States Chief Magistrate Judge Cheryl. L. Pollak.  The defendant was released on a $200,000 bond.

Seth D. DuCharme, Acting United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, William F. Sweeney, Jr., Assistant Director-in-Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation, New York Field Office (FBI), and Patrick J. Freaney, Deputy Special Agent-in-Charge, United States Secret Service, New York Field Office (USSS), announced the charge.

“Through this alleged scheme, Rosenfeld abused his position as an attorney and betrayed his victims’ trust for his own selfish gain,” stated Acting United States Attorney DuCharme.  “Those who commit fraud, including lawyers, must be brought to justice, and this Office will continue to work tenaciously to ensure integrity in the practice of law.”

“As alleged, Rosenfeld solicited investments based on his stated intent to purchase various real estate and ‘flip’ it for substantial profit.  In reality, he didn’t buy any properties, so there were none to sell.  Rather, Rosenfeld used the money he received to make his own financial trades and investments. Today, we’ve flipped the script on him and held him accountable for his fraudulent actions,” stated FBI Assistant Director-in-Charge Sweeney.

“The U.S. Secret Service remains dedicated to investigating those who commit financial fraud and would like to recognize the efforts of our law enforcement partners in helping bring them to justice,” stated USSS Deputy Special Agent-in-Charge Freaney. “This investigation exemplifies the success that law enforcement can achieve when working in a collaborative manner. In this instance, the defendant allegedly perpetrated a scheme to defraud and misappropriated funds from numerous victims for his own personal gain.”   

According to the complaint, between May 2014 and March 2018, Rosenfeld allegedly perpetrated a fraudulent scheme by soliciting and receiving approximately at least $4 million from various individuals (collectively, the “Victims”) based on fraudulent misrepresentations.  Specifically, Rosenfeld induced the Victims to invest their money with the defendant based, in part, on representations that he would purchase real estate and sell it to a prospective buyer at a higher price, also referred to as “flipping” the property.  Rosenfeld further told the Victims that he would split the profits from the real estate transactions with the Victims.  In reality, Rosenfeld misappropriated the investors’ money by directing the funds into bank accounts he controlled and using the money to trade securities out of his brokerage account. Rosenfeld falsely told the Victims that there were problems with the real estate transactions, such as title or appraisal issues, to explain why no properties had been purchased. 

If convicted of wire fraud, Rosenfeld faces up to 20 years’ imprisonment.  The charge in the complaint are allegations, and the defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.

The government’s case is being handled by the Office’s Business & Securities Fraud Section.  Assistant United States Attorney Hiral D. Mehta is in charge of the prosecution.

The Defendant:

SHIMON ROSENFELD
Age:  59
Brooklyn, New York

E.D.N.Y. Docket No. 21-MJ-96Attachment(s): Download Rosenfeld ComplaintTopic(s): Financial FraudComponent(s): USAO – New York, EasternContact: John Marzulli United States Attorney’s Office (718) 254-6323

Brooklyn Attorney and $4M Real Estate Scam: Be Careful in Whom you Invest!

Brooklyn Attorney Charged In $4 Million Real Estate Scam: Feds

Shimon Rosenfeld is accused of using millions from real estate investors, including for a Crown Heights project, for his own trading.

BROOKLYN, NY — A Brooklyn attorney who scammed real estate investors out of millions of dollars has been charged with wire fraud, prosecutors announced.

Shimon Rosenfeld, 59, was arrested Wednesday after a federal investigation into his years-long scheme, which included at least $4 million “investments” in properties in Crown Heights, Greenpoint and in Philadelphia, Pa., according to court documents.

Rosenfeld told at least four investors that he would put their money into real estate projects, but instead ended up using the money for his own trades out of a brokerage account, prosecutors said. He is charged with wire fraud and could face 20 years in prison if convicted.

“Through this alleged scheme, Rosenfeld abused his position as an attorney and betrayed his victims’ trust for his own selfish gain,” stated Acting United States Attorney Seth DuCharme. Those who commit fraud, including lawyers, must be brought to justice, and this Office will continue to work tenaciously to ensure integrity in the practice of law.”

To continue reading, click here.

Finally, Israel Safe Haven No More – Malka Leifer Extradited to Australia

Adass letter to community

Israel Extradites Teacher Accused of Abuse in Australia, Reports Say

Malka Leifer, who fled to Israel, faces 74 counts of sexual abuse related to her tenure as a principal at a Jewish girls’ school in Melbourne.

JERUSALEM — An Israeli woman accused of sexually abusing students at an Australian school where she was the principal has been extradited from Israel, according to reports in the Israeli news media, concluding a seven-year deportation process that had tested relations between the two countries.

Malka Leifer, 54, is accused of 74 counts of rape and sexual abuse that investigators say took place between 2004 and 2008, when she was the principal of a Jewish girls’ school in Melbourne.

Australian officials formally sought her extradition in 2014, but the process was repeatedly delayed after Ms. Leifer’s legal team at the time argued that she was mentally unfit to stand trial.

Photographs published Monday on an Israeli news website, Ynet, showed Ms. Leifer being escorted aboard a plane in Tel Aviv on Sunday night.

Ms. Leifer’s lawyer, Nick Kaufman, said he had not received official confirmation that she had been deported but had been told she would be sent to Australia this week.

Officials at the Israeli foreign and justice ministries, state attorney’s office, police force and prison service declined to comment, as did the Australian attorney-general’s office.

Ms. Leifer, an Israeli citizen, moved in 2001 to Australia, where she later became the principal of Adass Israel, a school for ultra-Orthodox Jewish girls, and then fled to Israel in 2008 after details of the assault allegations emerged.

The sluggish pace of the deportation process drew occasional criticism from Australian lawmakers. The case also embroiled an ultra-Orthodox Israeli government minister from the same sect as Ms. Leifer, Yaakov Litzman, after the Israeli police accused him of pressuring psychiatrists to report that Ms. Leifer was not well enough to be tried.

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The Haredi Leaders Should be Taking Responsibility for the Covid-19 Deaths that Result from their Flouting

ZAKA chief blames haredi community leaders for parents’ death

The Presidential Pardon… One of Many… Shulem a/k/a Sholem a/k/a Sholam Weiss

The below commentary has been published with the Permission of the Author. The following article on his site can be found at: https://larrynoodles.com/otisville-pardon-party/ Before posting, however, we have provided a backdrop.

Note to Reader:

Before posting the below commentary we want to provide you with some political backdrop from the New York Times that may provide some color regarding the relationship between Weiss and the former US President.

845 Years in Prison, If the Authorities Can Catch Him; F.B.I. Says Fugitive Has a Flair For Fraud and Hiding Stolen Cash

From the New York Times

OTISVILLE PARDON PARTY

Two days ago Otisville inmate Sholam Weiss was counting the days until the year 2738, the day he was scheduled to be released from Federal prison. Weiss got the longest sentence for white collar criminals in the history of the Republic, 600 years longer than Bernie Madoff, even though Weiss paid his $125 million restitution in full. Today, thanks to a Presidential pardon, Sholam Weiss danced with his family and friends in upstate New York. Sholam is the guy above with the white beard. Sholam and a few other guys scammed National Heritage Life Insurance Company, based out of Florida, out of $450 million.

Sholam, a member of the bearded Satmar sect, was clean shaven before he got COVID19 in Otisville. After COVID19 Sholam turned to religion. You won’t find any athiests in a foxhole. Sholam grew his Hasidic beard and survived the plague, and lived to see his 700 year prison sentence reduced to gornisht, nada, nothing. Sholam lived to see his day of freedom and redemption.

Sholam lived on the lam for a year in Europe with his stripper shiksa girlfriend hiding from the Feds before he was caught. Sholam’s long sentence was meant to deter others from fleeing from the long arm of the Justice Department. Sholam invested some of his ill begotten gains in Scores strip club in Manhattan. Sholam was partners at Scores with John Gotti Jr. and other mobsters. The party ended when the Feds raided the club and wired up a few guys who were connected to Sholam’s insurance company. The Feds in New York used these informants to bust the mob for extortion. The Feds in Florida used these same informants to bust Weiss and his assocites for the massive fraud they committed at National Heritage Life Insurance Company.

Weiss was locked up in the Otisville medium with Sholom Rubashkin, who got a commutation of his 27 year sentence a year ago. I was locked up in the Otisville camp, which was separated by the medium with a barbed wire fence. Every now and then I could look through the fence and see Rubashkin or Weiss, or Mordechai Samet, who got an early release this past September. Rubashkin and Weiss ran the chapel for the Jewish inmates locked up in the medium. Samet and Weiss were cellmates. I heard from guys in the medium that Weiss and Rubashkin didn’t get along. Weiss had shaved his beard and was not as religious as Rubashkin and Samet. Weiss, Samet and Rubashkin were the only religious Jews in the medium for several years. I used to watch Samet jog every day in the medium with an African American inmate.

There was never more than a dozen Jewish inmates in the Otisville medium. In the camp there was always about 80 or more Jewish inmates out of a total of 118 inmates. The medium had about 700 inmates. Today the camp probably has less than 30 Jewish inmates and around 65 total campers, due to COVID19. If you had under ten years you went to the camp, if you had more than ten years you went to the medium. The Otisville medium was not as violent as most medium prisons, State or Federal, but there were reformed gang members and lifers locked up there, as well as aging mafioso who were sentenced in the 1980s.

Otisville inmate Jonathan Braun was scheduled to be released in 2027. Braun was an international pot dealer. Braun got ten years. Braun is a very wealthy man. Braun ran a high interest money lending operation for years while he waited to be sentenced. Borrowers filed lawsuits against him for his strong arm collection practices. Braun is currently celebrating his pardon with his wife and children in his new house he purchased recently. Braun said goodbye to New York Democratic political power broker Sheldon Silver, who is still locked up in the Otisville camp. Silver has four years to go. Silver tried to get a pardon but was stymied by Republicans as well Democrat Andrew Cuomo, who called the Donald to object to 76 year old Silver’s early release. According to the New York Times, Cuomo suggested that “the Jewish community” was lobbying the Donald to pardon Silver. Cuomo would be called a racist if he said that Snoop Dogg and the African American community lobbied to get Death Row Records founder Michael Harris a commutation. Harris was doing a life sentence for conspiracy to commit murder and drug dealing. Harris was a model inmate after 25 long years in Federal prison. It was time to go home.

Former Otisville inmate 43 year old Helle Nahmad was granted a post prison pardon. Helle did about 6 months in the Otisville camp for his role in a high end illegal sports betting ring, which also included Molly Bloom, who was the main character in the movie “Molly’s Game.” The Nahmad family is worth billions of dollars and owns the largest collection of Picasso paintings in the world. I was locked up with Helle. I taught Helle how to mop a floor in Otisville. Apparently billionaires don’t teach their children how to mop. Al Capone’s nickname at Alcatraz was “the wop with the mop.” Helle’s nickname at Otisville was “H’ell.” Helle was a decent guy. Helle regaled us with stories about the high life, where he partied with the rich and famous. Helle’s best friends were Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Brady and Tom’s wife supermodel Gisele. Everyone wanted to be Helle’s friend. But Helle didn’t like phonies. Helle liked to spend every night playing backgammon with a heavy set Italian guy from Maine, who was missing a few teeth, named Sonny. Sonny told everyone that Helle and him were besties and Helle was going to set him up in the art business when he got out. Sonny ended up getting shipped out of Otisville because he failed to pay a big gambling debt he had with another inmate. Sonny almost had a heart attack in my cell. Helle kept in touch with some of the guys after he got released, but he was not the type to give away money to ex-cons. He was a businessman. He sometimes compained about people on the outside who tried to rip him off. Helle had one of the actors from the Wolf of Wall Street visit him in Otisville.

45 year old real estate fraudster Eliyahu Weinstein was locked up in Fort Dix and was scheduled to be released on December 25, 2033 when he got a commutation of his sentence. Eli operated a real estate investment scheme out of Lakewood, NJ, and scammed Jewish investors in Lakewood out of a half a billion dollars, if not close to a billion. Eli is celebrating his freedom in Lakewood, but he will be back in Fort Dix if he violates his probation and starts up new scams. I predict that Eli will end up back in prison in a couple of years. Guys like Eli are addicted to crime.

Two Otisville guys who tried to get pardons and commutations apparently didn’t make the cut, Hassan Nemazee and Rabbi Mendel Epstein. Iranian-American Hassan Nemazee was a big time fundraiser for the Democratic Party. Nemazee was close to the Clintons, but not close enough to get pardoned by the Democrats. Nemazee was able to scam Citibank out of $200 million dollars by submitting a few phony brokerage statements of his net worth. Nemazee got ten years in Otisville. I was locked up with Nemazee. Nemazee was an arrogant old man. Nemazee was the Persian prince. Nemazee finished his sentence a couple of years ago. Before Nemazee got released he got in a physical fight with another old man. The guards laughed at them and threw them in solitary. I assume the Donald rejected Nemazee for the same reason that the Donald rejected Democrat Sheldon Silver, which is strange because there is speculation that the Donald will form his own political party. 75 year old Rabbi Epstein is locked up in Butner, after getting transferred out of Otisville for medical reasons. Epstein got COVID19. Epstein is scheduled to be released in 2024. I don’t know why the Donald passed over Epstein. Epstein and Nemazee may have better luck with Joe Biden.

A video of Shulem Weiss a few hours after his release from Otisville was posted on Youtube. Weiss, along with the other guys who were pardoned, were very wealthy and had big time political connections. Its not fair that they got released while hundreds of thousands of other guys are still locked up in animal cages. But anyone who has ever been locked up for a substantial period of time is celebrating their release. Nobody forgets the day of their liberation. The punishment does not always fit the crime. I met hundreds of guys in Otisville. I only know of two guys who ended up back in prison.

Sholem Weiss in the Otisville prison parking lot after his release today

An Amazing Shabbat Dinner, Filmed with Strict Rabbinical Guidance – a Lesson in Humanity and Kindness [VIDEO]

Zirkind, Money Laundering, Chabad, Drug Cartels, US, Canada, etc.etc.

Update: Rabbi Zalmund Zirkind was sentenced to 84 months for Money Laundering and was denied trips to Montreal. Using a lack of appropriate education to excuse his crimes seemed to fall on deaf ears.

Reprinted with Permission of the Author:

FEDS BUST NARCO MONEY LAUNDERING RABBI RING

 January 14, 2021  Larry Noodles 

In 2014 Canadian Rabbi Mark Zirkind was caught speeding on a highway leading to Montreal. Mark had just flown into the Toronto airport and was heading back to Montreal in a rental car. Mark had picked up over a million dollars in cash from an international narco drug dealer at a shopping mall near the Toronto airport. Lesson to learn from Mark: If you have over a million dollars in narco cash you should obey the traffic laws.

Mark got busted by the Canadian Mounties and went to trial. At trial Mark claimed that he was duped by rabbis and narco dealers. Mark thought he was transporting “Shoah Gelt.” Mark told the Canadian jury that he thought he was delivering cash for safekeeping for Jews in Europe who were afraid of a second Holocaust. Mark told the jury that he was doing a mitzvah. The jury didn’t believe Mark. Mark got sentenced to four years in a Canadian prison in Saskatchewan where he learned how to smoke salmon and tan pelts.

Rabbi Mark enlisted his American brother Rabbi Zalman Zirkind to help him launder money for international drug dealers. Rabbi Zalman in turn enlisted his nephew Rabbi Benzion Zirkind to join him in the family business. The Rabbis laundered tens of millions in cash through New York, Hong Kong, Israel, Columbia, Canada and Mexico. Zalman and Benzion both got busted by the Feds. Zalman pleaded guilty. Zalman is getting sentenced tomorrow in Federal Court before Judge Denise Cote in New York City. Zalman was facing 14 years of incarceration based on the Federal sentencing guidelines. The Justice Department agreed to lower their recommendation to five years based on Zalman’s health and family issues. Zalman has many children and has some personal medical issues, as well as medical issues related to his children.

Zalman’s nephew Benzion pleaded not guilty. Benzion will be facing trial with his co-conspirators Emiliano Bomba, Brian Para Machado, Jose Baez, and Andy Garibaldi Lopez. I don’t believe that you can count Benzion’s co-conspirators for a minyan.

Zalman’s attorney has made the following arguments for leniency in court filings: “In contrast to many men in Zirkinds’ Orthodox Jewish community, including his own father, who relinquished all child rearing responsibilities, ie., never change diapers, grocery shop, or take their children to community outings, Zirkind proudly and fully shared home and child rearing responsibilities with his wife…. he would also fill the family car with gas, take out the garbage, pay the bills, deal with the bank, take the children to school and doctors’ appointments, and for the Sabbath, would make the cholent a special meal prepared on Friday to be enjoyed on Saturday… The reactions from people in Zalman’s community upon learning of his crime include scorn, ridicule and ostracism. Even some family members no longer want to have anything to do with him… Though now of marriage age, Zalman’s son appears to be ostracized by the matchmakers and mothers in his community. Before Zalman’s arrest, mothers and matchmakers were promoting others to marry his oldest son. Before his arrest, a marriage was on the short horizon. The Zirkind family, now shamed in the community by Zalman’s sins, and plea of guilt, the heretofore imminent marriage appears as a black hole in that young man’s future.”

The Feds will argue at sentencing that Zalman continued to launder millions of dollars of narco dollars after his brother Mark got busted in Canada in 2014. Didn’t Zalman see the writing on the wall? Zalman’s attorneys argued in response: “In the exercise of its informed discretion, the Government continued to allow Mr. Zirkind to deal with others after he was identified as a money transmitter. Had the Government chosen to arrest Mr. Zirkind in 2018 Zalman could have cooperated and might be facing a lower sentence or guideline range.”

Zalman received numerous character letters of support from prominent Rabbis in the United States and Canada. Zalman also received a character letter signed by renowned Canadian Professor of Mathematics, and author of many inspirational books, Rabbi Doctor Abraham Boyarsky. Dr. Boyarsky wrote the following: “I believe Zalman is a victim of an educational system that I battled fiercely for years… in 1990 I founded TAV College with a mission of training young men like Zalman to acquire a profession such as computer training and earn an honest living. For attempting to do the unthinkable, I was called a traitor by the rabbinical leaders in the community and threatened with cheirim, excommunication. My novel, The Chassidic Trauma Unit, portrays life in this educationally impoverished community. It is my good fortune that most people in my community can’t read English, otherwise I would have been lynched a long time ago.”Zirkind Letters

DownloadZirkind

Gov MemoDownload

Zirkind Memo Def Download

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Mining Tycoon, Steinmetz, Kushner, Guinea, Switzerland and…

Israeli billionaire Beny Steinmetz has been at the centre of an international investigation into alleged bribery to win mining rights in Guinea. (Image from Beny Steinmetz’s website)

Beny Steinmetz: Mining tycoon in Swiss trial over Guinea deal

“A billionaire French-Israeli diamond magnate, Beny Steinmetz, has appeared in court in Switzerland to face trial over alleged corruption linked to a major mining deal in Guinea.

He has always denied his company, BSGR, paid multi-million dollar bribes to obtain iron ore mining exploration permits in southern Guinea in 2008.

He travelled to Geneva from Israel for the two-week trial.

If convicted he could face up to 10 years in prison.

Steinmetz, 64, was previously sentenced in absentia to five years in prison by a court in Romania for money laundering.

Swiss prosecutors say Steinmetz paid about $10m (£7.4m) in bribes, in part through Swiss bank accounts, to gain the rights to Guinea’s iron ore deposits in the Simandou mountains.

The area is believed to contain the world’s largest untapped iron ore deposits.

His lawyer Marc Bonnant says “we will plead his innocence”.

Rabbi Zirkind – Money Laundering, Narcotics and a Sentencing Letter or Two…

Letter regarding education to the Court

Considerations for Deciding on a Sentence – A Deficiency of Education? Really…

Dear Reader:

Zalmund Zirkind is charged with the laundering of funds derived from drug trafficking. There are numerous victims, including those who have fallen victim to drug abuse, overdoses and death for whom Zirkind, whether directly or indirectly, provided a pathway to use. His laundry operation was clever, considered and committed. And excusing this behavior on the basis of a failed education is a travesty.

If Hasidic education is inadequate it should be acknowledged as a failure and fixed. If the Hasidics are fighting any effort to provide them with an adequate education, they should not then be excused from the accompanying failures with respect to abiding by civil laws. The Zirkind family ascribes to their belief system, indoctrination of educational neglect, the accompanying insularity and community centrist religious practice. They should not be rewarded for their choices when running afoul of the law.

The community with which Zirkind identifies is entirely opposed to secular education with rare exception. They claim that their Torah education is superior to civil education, a claim echoed in the United States, Canada and throughout Europe and Israel. Rabbi Zalmund Zirkind is a rabbi, a person held in high esteem and regard, a person of allegedly moral superiority. He is supposed to be exemplary and pristine, setting an example for his followers.

The religious community has fought in courts the world over to prevent the imposition of civil education. There are claims in lawsuits wherein Torah education is described as “superior” and “secular studies as morally challenged.” If Torah education, absent civil studies, is superior are we to reward its failings? Is Zirkind, then, by virtue of the educational environment in which he was raised superior or is he morally challenged? He can’t have it both ways with the above letter also being evidence of reasons for leniency, a shield protecting him for the charges for which he has pleaded guilty.

While the person who wrote that letter claims to have fought the religious educational system for years, his fight is irrelevant. If Zirkind himself believed his education inadequate, why allow his own family members to follow suit? Perhaps so they will later have an excuse to claim that their deficient understanding of the world should yield the benefits of diminished sentencing when they commit crimes? That is an absurdity.

Rabbi Zirkind was to have been a pillar of his community, an example. His affinity for decency as expressed in the above letter does not mitigate the crimes he committed or the responsibility he had to provide a pristine example for his congregants. Were we to be lenient what message would that send to his followers?

The following are pages from the Government’s position on the Zirkind sentencing which can be found on the court docket. It is not to be deemed as complete.

Government position on Zirkind Sentencing from Docket

Government position on Zirkind Sentencing from Docket

Government position on Zirkind Sentencing from Docket

Government position on Zirkind Sentencing from Docket

Government position on Zirkind Sentencing from Docket

Hypocrisy, No. Cuomo Finally Understanding the Magnitude of Nursing Home Abuse – Covid-19

The New York Post

Holding Nursing Home Magnates to Account for Their Flippant Handling of the Covid-19 Pandemic

From our perspective, it is about time that nursing homes in the State of New York are being held to account for their reporting of nursing home deaths. To this point, many have been poorly managed and the oversight of that management has been staggeringly absent. The reason? Well, Governor Cuomo, Tish James and many political candidates in both parties have nursing home owners, their lawyers, their vendors, their advocates all supporting political campaigns. Either that support comes in the form of direct check-writing or through Super PAC’s, courtesy of Citizen’s United. Trying to hold the same people who got you elected accountable for the horrors within their nursing homes is a risky gamble when it comes to a political future.

And then there are the lobbyists. You know. The ones who lobby the government for leeway, some wiggle room. This applies both to standards of healthcare, or rather, standards of moral human decency and financial accounting methods. That accounting is also Medicaid, Medicare and Private Insurance companies who are being defrauded time and time again. Why they have not thrown the breakers on eludes us.

Washington, DC, Free and Fair Elections, the DRC, Dan Gertler, Mer, Magnitsky and Guiliani…

Flag of the Democratic Republic of Congo

Mer, Kabila, the Congo, Dan Gertler and… Rudi Guiliani… and then There’s Magnitsky

This opinion is written following a brillliant article that came out in Buzzfeed on December 30, 2020 and should be read in the context of that article entitled:

A Secretive Company Needed To Convince Washington That Congo’s Election Would Be “Free And Fair.” It Found A Friendly Ear Among Trump Allies.

A BuzzFeed News investigation, based on thousands of pages of documents and more than 100 interviews in the US, Congo, and Europe, provides a first-ever look inside Mer’s aggressive campaign to influence the Trump administration and serve Kabila’s interests. It shows how such efforts can shape foreign policy in ways unbeknownst to both the public and senior government officials, through meetings and phone calls that leave few witnesses and little trace of the private influences involved.

In this case, the most powerful nation in the world swept aside authoritarian abuses — even when many of its own top diplomats thought such a decision flew in the face of US interests.

Despite all the promises that Kabila’s proxies made in Washington that year, Congo’s election, ultimately held in December 2018, was neither free nor fair. Citing voting data that leaked after the election, international observers said that it was brazenly rigged in favor of a candidate with whom Kabila had struck a secret power-sharing deal. Kabila would officially step down, but he would still command Congo’s security forces, his allies would still hold top Cabinet positions, and his party would still wield a legislative majority.

Within days of the election, the leaked voting data sparked protests across Congo. Heads of state in Europe and Africa called for an international investigation. The US echoed the denunciation.

Mer’s efforts in Washington looked doomed.

But a month after the election, in January 2019, the Trump administration suddenly dropped its objections and instead praised “Kabila’s commitment to becoming the first president in DRC history to cede power peacefully through an electoral process.” The decision to reverse course came from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, BuzzFeed News has learned. But it shocked veteran diplomats and rank-and-file State Department officials who had crafted the initial policy. And it put an end to the international coalition that was forming to examine the election.

Read the Buzzfeed article in its entirety here.

Let me refresh your memory, on November 7, 2019, in a follow up to an article I posted on November 6, 2019, I published an opinion piece entitled “Dan Gertler and the OFAC Sanctions – Someone Had to Have Been Negotiating with Glencore” wherein I corrected the record as to dates from the previously posted article and presented my theories. The relevant corrected dates of that article, however, only serve to substantiate my theory, that there were a series of well-timed announcements, one corresponding though seemingly unconnected to the other and all subtly buried in a haze of smoke and mirrors. Then came the pandemic and any modicum of an investigation into the activities of the relevant players fell to the wayside.

I maintain that there were lobbyists behind the scenes negotiating on Gertler’s behalf with respect to the Magnitsky Act Sanctions and corresponding payments from Glencore allegedly due to Gertler. Gertler’s proven connection to Kabila providing a backdrop. In 2019 I did not complicate matters, however, by adding in the Congo/Glencore connection because I had fully intended to fill in that piece at some future date. Suffice it to say that the sanctions were imposed upon Dan Gertler (and his related companies) by the United States for his mining activities and human rights abuses in the Congo. While both the US, for formality’s sake, and Gertler and his associates now deny the allegations of abuse that triggered the imposition of the sanctions, The Africa Report, Global Witness and Bloomberg to name a few, have made direct and undeniable connections between Gertler and those abuses. They have also directly connected Gertler to Kabila and Kabila to Gertler. While they have not necessarily tied Gertler to Kabila’s reelection, or rather re-positioning of power, the connection is largely undeniable; and we maintain the whole show was being negotiated by Guiliani and/or his associates and Mer.

How Did The State of New York Get it So Dramatically Wrong… and ParCare

Dear Reader:

The name ParCare is flying through the news media and blogosphere like wildfire. There are dozens of links, each regurgitating much the same story – that ParCare either fraudulently obtained and distributed Covid-19 vaccines or that ParCare legitimately obtained the Covid-19 vaccine but fraudulently distributed it to places for which they were not licensed to distribute and to people to whom they were not permitted to administer it. There are also variations in between. Sadly, however those two versions of the same story cannot co-exist.

Did ParCare obtain the vaccine legally or did they not? Simple question. One would think there is a simple answer; but no one is really demanding the answers from the State of New York, which has historically lacked oversight in all areas of healthcare and medicine. ParCare is allegedly cooperating with the investigation and has returned unused vials of the Moderna vaccine.

The most irking question is why is the very community that has flaunted unabashedly an aversion to the laws, even to the braggadocios conclusion that the group is not comprised of Americans and therefore not going to follow US laws, were some of the first to be granted access to a vaccine. Okay. If you are not going to follow the law then why should you be afforded the benefits that the law allows? How can a community so openly unwilling to cooperate and to do what’s right for the preservation of human life be granted first rights to healthcare and vaccinations supplied by the very same laws they refuse to follow? This is not about religion, it is about the sanctity of human life and a group unwilling respect it.

Esformes – Convicted of one of the Largest Healthcare Frauds in History Gets Sentence Commuted

Dear Reader:

Our theory is that someone in Trump’s government or advisory group is in the process of going into business with Philip Esformes and the commuted sentence helps to facilitate that. Just a theory…

Suffice it to say, we have no other statement than that this is a disgraceful decision. It is everything wrong with the Presidential pardon power and a shining example of Trump’s failures as a human being, setting aside his failures as President. Yes. Some would disagree.

It is hard, however, to make a case for commuting the sentence of Esformes, though some have done it and we question their judgement. It would be like setting Bernie Madoff free. That, at this point, would come as no surprise.

Esformes spent years perfecting the craft of defrauding the healthcare industry and patients in nursing homes paid the price. He is a godless creature of habit and no amount of prayer in our view diminishes the harm he caused to vulnerable people and the healthcare industry at large. This opinion is yet another condemnation of the lack of nursing care oversight in the United States.

We submit that Trump should spend a few months in one of Esformes’ worst homes and see what he thinks afterwards. It could be almost like “Undercover Boss.” Trump would be forced to allow no one to know he is the President and get treated like other patients. If only…

Trump Announces Wave Of Pardons Including Orthodox Jew Phillip Esformes

Philip Esformes – Today, President Trump commuted the term of imprisonment of Philip Esformes, while leaving the remaining aspects of his sentence, including supervised release and restitution, intact.  This commutation is supported by former Attorneys General Edwin Meese and Michael Mukasey, as well as former Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson.  In addition, former Attorneys General Edwin Meese, John Ashcroft, and Alberto Gonzalez, as well as other notable legal figures such as Ken Starr, have filed in support of his appeal challenging his conviction on the basis of prosecutorial misconduct related to violating attorney-client privilege.

While in prison, Mr. Esformes, who is 52, has been devoted to prayer and repentance and is in declining health.

To read the article in its entirety in Yeshiva World News, click here.

Nursing Homes and Covid-19, The Dangers, the Money, the Lack of Oversight, Time for Home Care

Dear Reader:

Covid-19 is a pubic health disaster.

But, so too are most nursing homes and rehabilitation centers. Many of them represent the greatest constitutional violation of life, liberty, happiness and dignity for those most vulnerable who are confined to many of the nations homes.

There are very personal reasons why this blogger knows so much about them and their deplorable conditions. Setting aside visits to upwards of 45 different nursing homes and rehabilitation centers throughout New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania and being asked to negotiate a bid on Personal Protective Equipment by an unsuspecting client, research on homes and their owners has made the entire industry stomach-turning. That client did not realize at the time that the equipment he was asked to broker had been taken from a nursing home (paid for by Medicare, Medicaid or private insurance) and warehoused in New Jersey. Someone else likely did the deal, the client walked away.

So, perhaps Covid-19 was necessary to open people’s eyes to the dangers of nursing homes and rehabilitation centers and to provide much needed incentive for the government to oversee them with vigor, zeal and a passion that reflects our need to protect the elderly and most vulnerable.

Well, this might just be wishful thinking.

Suffice it to say, most owners and operators are looking to the bottom line. It is about the money, the profit and loss, the quasi virtual auction of human life by social services, guardianship, social workers in hospitals and the individuals that make the wheels of the human life industry turn. Many are morally bankrupt and the more their pockets get lined the more soulless they become.

More to follow. For now, The Wall Street Journal:

U.S.

Covid Spurs Families to Shun Nursing Homes, a Shift That Appears Long Lasting

The pan­demic is re­shap­ing the way Amer­i­cans care for their el­derly, prompt­ing fam­ily de­ci­sions to avoid nurs­ing homes and keep loved ones in their own homes for re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion and other care.

Amer­i­cans have long re­lied on in­sti­tu­tions to care for the frailest se­niors. The U.S. has the largest num­ber of nurs­ing-home res­i­dents in the world. But fam­i­lies and some doc­tors have been re­luc­tant to send pa­tients to such fa­cil­i­ties, fear­ing in­fec­tion and iso­la­tion in places rav­aged by Covid-19, which has caused more than 115,000 deaths linked to U.S. long-term-care in­sti­tu­tions.

To continue reading in The Wall Street Journal, click here.

ADDITIONAL SOURCES:

COVID-19 spurs families to shun nursing homes in a shift that appears long lasting

“We should be able to provide more services in the home setting that can enable somebody to be independent,” said Seema Verma, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. “Covid is going to force a national conversation about how we take care of our elderly, and clearly there are issues in nursing homes that go beyond infection control,” she said.

During his campaign, President-elect Joe Biden promised to spend $450 billion to make sure people who need long-term care can get support in the home and community.

51 lost lives: A portrait of the pandemic’s
tragic toll in America’s nursing homes

They had survived so much already — war and dust storms, cancer and poverty, lost eyesight, lost spouses, lost memories — and still went on to find moments of grace inside the corridors of America’s nursing homes.

In Windsor, Conn., Johnny James ate chocolate bars with his visiting great-grandchildren. In Lewiston, Idaho, Edna McBride celebrated her 100th birthday. In Providence, R.I., Florence Tilles, who had two knee surgeries, liked to joke she would one day die at the 18th hole of her favorite golf course.

One day came on May 30, when 98-year-old Tilles fell victim to covid-19 amid a soaring death toll that included James and McBride and would soon grow to more than 80,000 residents in nursing homes across the country. They suffered alone, in homes locked down to visitors, peering at the masked faces of weary nurses and aides who risked their own lives to be there.

The industry and the government could have done far more, watchdog groups have said from the beginning, shoring up infection-control protocols and staffing, delivering stronger oversight of troubled homes and ensuring that coronavirus stimulus payments reached patients and caregivers rather than corporate owners.

Instead, 10 months later, thousands of families are learning to live without goodbyes.

The 51 residents whose stories are told here, one from every state and the District of Columbia, left behind at least 129 children, 230 grandchildren, 210 great-grandchildren and 41 great-great-grandchildren. Some blame the nursing homes for questionable care. Others say they are enormously grateful for the work of caregivers.

To continue with The Washington Post, click here.

Nursing Homes and their Attorney Owners – Covid-19 and the Staggering Conflicting Interests that Exist – Part I

Law Firms prized for their Knowledge of Elder Care and Novel Approaches to Protecting the Elderly, and the conflicting interests of the Partners and Associates who Own Financial Stakes in Subpar Nursing and Rehabilitation Centers [OPINION]

Dear Reader:

The right to “sepulcher” in the law is the “right of a family member or next of kin to find solace and comfort in the act of burying a loved one.” Protecting this right alone can be the basis for a highly respectable and extremely lucrative boutique practice for attorneys. A lawsuit based upon that right can be relevant in situations where fallen soldiers are not returned home, victims of terrorist attacks are not returned to their families; and during the Covid-19 pandemic, bodies are improperly buried or even lost. A recent example is the case of Elayne Boosler, wherein a family members was buried at the hands of a guardian’s signature in the wrong cemetery at significant cost. That case is eliciting calls for an investigation. Her story is gruesome and complicated by a system of guardianship that itself is enshrouded in secrecy and disenfranchisement.

In the United States many law firms with highly intelligent and respected attorneys and practices focused on elder care, geriatric medical abuses, estate planning, insurance and disability, medical malpractice and related practices, simultaneously represent some of the worst offenders in nursing home care abuses. Many of the partners in these firms also own financial stakes in nursing homes, either with their clients or not. It is our opinion that these are diametrically opposed practices; and it is nearly impossible for a law firm to maintain the integrity of one practice area while being paid millions to represent the others. That is an opinion premised on what may be a debatable notion of ethics and moral integrity.

Admittedly, Covid-19 has created a mitigating factor in recent history. But our opinion is unwavering: the lack of care for the welfare of the elderly, the lack of interest in dignity and humanity has governed, with a wholehearted disregard for humanity, particularly in law firms with competing interests. This has occurred throughout our entire system of care and of justice. With respect to dignified and responsible elder care, the Covid-19 tragedy has denied the right to tens of thousands of families of nursing and rehabilitation homes’ patients to be physically present for their loved ones in life and, in many cases, to bury those same people who have had their lives taken by the virus.

We would argue that the fault lies though not entirely, with the owners and financial stakeholders of many of these nursing homes and rehabilitation centers. We would posit that they did not take proper precautions during the pandemic, choosing instead the path of least cost routing. Precautions would have undermined owners’ bottom lines. We maintain that the owners and operators were looking at their P/L Statements (Profit and Loss), and ignoring the potential loss of human life. Some nursing homes carry life insurance for their patients and are themselves beneficiaries of those policies. They therefore profit whether their wards live or die. This makes the situation all the more unpalatable.

For those owners whose real life profession is an active and lucrative legal practice, one which focuses on elder care, the rights of the elderly, estate planning and healthcare services, in our view there has always been a weighing of financial averages and significant conflicts. Moreover, the pandemic has increased the value of lobbying governments to reduce nursing home and even medical accountability, a conflicting premise if you are an elder care lawyer.

To add another wrench in the cogs of a lucrative attorney practice that plays both the elder care and nursing home ownership game, it is less expensive to lobby the government for Covid-19 related immunity provisions which protect owners (often themselves) from liability than to save lives and actually engage in “elder care.” It is a simple financial calculation. And at the end of the day, the elderly lose and the attorneys win.

A reasonable analogy would be a car company that hides known and foreseeable danger in manufacturing because the cost of reimbursement for the death of drivers and passengers is less expensive than recalling the vehicles in question. The outcome is based upon purely financial decisions which will continue status quo unless and until significant financial accountability is mandated.

In our view, both in the nursing home context and in the vehicle scenario, conscience and morality simply do not a play a role in the decision-making of owners and operators. In both instances manipulating political clout to obliterate the chance for families to seek financial compensation for loss of life or consortium has made and continues to make the most financial sense. In both analogous situations, if the people in charge are not held to account, both civilly and criminally, these financial equations will take precedent over the value of human life and lives will be lost.

And please remember, in the situation where the lawyers are the owners and operators of nursing homes, they make money either way. Their legal representation on behalf of owners generates bills for tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars in yearly billables. The nursing home ownership is gravy and the more immunity they obtain for themselves and their clients (who are often partnered with them) from liability the richer the returns on all fronts.

The nagging question is this: how can a law firm, any law firm, simultaneously have a blossoming and distinguished practice of elder care, “rights of sepulchre”, estate planning and other related practice areas and at the same time represent owners of some of the most deplorably run nursing homes in the country? We do not think that it is possible without an inescapable conflict of interest, setting aside the ethical and moral obligations to clients within those practice areas. As a securities matter, we would argue that the LLC interests associated with nursing home ownership represent securities interests and that it should be possible to implicate the SEC and its trading regime. That’s just a thought.