Shalom Lamm, Kenneth Nakdimen, Michael Fragin and RICO Appeal

 

Mamakating fights for RICO appeal

NEW YORK — The Town of Mamakating and Village of Bloomingburg have not given up their battle to prove that developers of the 396-unit Chestnut Ridge development conspired with former village officials to illegally misrepresent plans for the housing complex.
In a federal racketeering lawsuit filed in April 2015, the two governments alleged that developers Shalom Lamm, Kenneth Nakdimen and Duane Roe, former Bloomingburg Mayor Mark Berentsen and others worked together to improperly annex land, expedite permit approvals, monopolize wastewater treatment capacity and use voter fraud to control the local government, all so Chestnut Ridge could become the future home of a large number of Hasidic families.
U.S. District Judge Katherine Forrest dismissed the lawsuit in September 2015, citing an expired statute of limitations, insufficient proof of a corrupt enterprise and unrecognizable damages under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. The town appealed in December, and appeal arguments were presented Friday.

http://www.recordonline.com/article/20160603/NEWS/160609766

 

More on Lamm and Nakdimen – Time to Put an End

 

 

Editorial – Time for Law Enforcement to Step In and Slow the Progress

LostMessiah and Contributors, May 1, 2016

The reports on Shalom Lamm and his partner Ken Nakdimen began years ago. Since that time, their plan has been working. They have been able, with some community resistance, to expand lies into more lies. And the sacrificial “Lamm” – the Village of Bloomingburg. 

Bloominburg was once a beautiful little village. It housed a sleep away camp called Camp Na Sho Pa, which many looked forward to attending for years. The camp was found on an extraordinary piece of land which held adjoining horseback riding trails, lakes and other natural resources so children could come from downstate and the Catskills to get away. That was when sleep away camp was popular.

As the years have gone by, the village has had its share of financial difficulties but has nonetheless managed to accommodate families and children attended school or college, had options for their futures. But Shalom Lamm and Ken Nakidem apparently had other plans for the village, plans that went undisclosed, plans that required lies and bribes, a media/law firm, payments to officials and other shady practices. 

Lamm had been known for his shady practices. FailedMessiah reported on them for years. Perhaps it is time now for the law to step in a slow down the domino effect that Lamm’s highly unKosher business practices set in motion.

 

Editorial: Bloomingburg secrecy needs state attention

Posted Apr. 27, 2016 at 11:32 AM
Updated Apr 27, 2016 at 11:34 AM

“It is time for the state of New York, the attorney general and the Department of Environmental Conservation to investigate development activities that now threaten the Village of Bloomingburg.

With the recent revelation of a secret plan calling for growth well beyond any public disclosure, with earlier revelations of other secret plans and with the continued demonstrated inability of local governments to ensure the protection of the local environment, only the state can do what needs to be done.

Ever since the first homes started going up in the Chestnut Ridge development in Bloomingburg, those who live in the village have wondered what the future would hold. Now, they have an answer or at least the vision of the men behind what started out as a modest 125 homes, grew to 396 with inadequate public scrutiny and now threatens to overwhelm the community, the surrounding town and the region.

As reports in the Times Herald-Record showed last week, documents included in one of the many legal actions concerning the activities in the tiny village contain a glimpse of a future that is nothing like anything anybody involved has revealed in the past.
Those documents outline a plan to construct 5,000 homes over the next 15 years and clearly state “It is intended to be a transformative development … that will ultimately accommodate thousands of families.”

The names on the documents are familiar ones in Bloominburg, developers Shalom Lamm and Kenneth Nakdimen. As their own documents state, these “developers of Chestnut Ridge have worked for 7 years in complete secrecy to achieve a fully approved project” which they refer to as “Phase I.”

Lamm and Nakdimen were also behind another secret agreement, this one with a local developer who persuaded the village to approve what was described as a 125-home gated community, “upscale second home town houses in a golf course setting.” Trusting local officials signed off on the expansion of that plan to the much larger one which we now know is merely the start of more to come.

Because the development is planned to accommodate Hassidic families there have been charges and countercharges about religious discrimination and intolerance. Those are bound to continue but they have nothing to do with the impact that thousands of homes will have should they receive approval from a local government that is itself being transformed into what has effectively become an extension of the development company. As the developers put it in their planning documents, “With the initial occupancy of these homes, the owners of Chestnut Ridge will effectively control the local government, its zoning and ordinances.”

That many homes for that many people will overwhelm the limited infrastructure of the local community. If nothing else, the state needs to make sure that such a large scale development is plausible and then ensure that there are adequate environmental protections each step of the way.

The county district attorney says he is following the situation as are those who represent the area in Albany. As far as it goes, which is not far enough, that is fine. Now it is time for the state to get busy.”

Follow the story on the Times Herald, Recordonline.com

Lamm & Nakdimen, The Money Flowing, A Community Destroyed

 

The Lies Told by Lamm and Nakdimen, the Conspiracy to Commit Fraud, The Real Plan Secretly Hashed Out and a New Satmar Community – Another Kiryas Joel

LostMessiah and Contributors, May 1, 2016

Shalom Lamm and his then partner Ken Nakdimen knew what they had planned, a huge community intended only for Satmar Hisidim. They drafted plans, corresponded, met in private, brought in developers, paid off local government officials. They may have even used a law firm to assist. The plan was to create another Kiryas Joel. Who cared that to do so required a systematic scheme of lies and bribery? Who cared that the lives of non-Jewish or secular Jewish children of another school district would be destroyed by private Yeshiva education and a secluded community? The Satmar would benefit by being able to purchase inexpensive land and all of the amenities of luxury, much of which would be paid for by taxpayer contributions into Section 8 and other welfare programs, typical of the Satmar community. Lamm and Nakdimen were master planners. They leached their way into the community like a virus, taking over all of the people who stood in their way, lying, bribing a community on the verge of poverty, the weaker. For men like Lamm and Nakdimen it is about the dollar. If the Satmar could provide it at the destruction of others, well that’s just survival of the fittest. 

In our view, it might be time to wash our hands of these communities, give them status as their own individual countries, similar to tribes of American Indians, within the states in which they live. It might be time to develop laws requiring United States citizens to provide nothing. It might be time to force these highly insular communities to live out their wishes of study and worship in the way in which the G-d many of us believe in intended, throughout piousness, tsnius (modesty) and hard work. Perhaps its time to force the communities to exchange their extravagant shtreimel for money to feed their children. Perhaps it’s time to demand that they sustain themselves. Or, perhaps men like Lamm and Nakdimen can provide them with the living expenses required to support those communities. Then and only then will they understand that the rest of us are not their minions, their financial benefactors. Our guess is that those being destroyed by men like Lamm and Nakdimen would agree.

It might be time for Preet Bharara to take a more active role, to undo some of the damage that has been done and to punish not only Lamm and Nakdimen but the members of the communities these men destroyed, who were willing if not eager to sacrifice their friends’ and neighbors’ children for money. After all, it is about nothing more than money.