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.

[see instagram]

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.