SHOMRIM CB – 12, Yidel & Perlstein and Lies…

FOLLOW UP ON THE SHOMRIM, THE PLAYERS AND THE CORRUPTION, AND THE WEBS OF LIES AND SCANDALS –

IF THESE ARE OUR PROTECTORS, FROM WHOM DO WE NEED PROTECTION?

Lost Messiah, June 20, 2016

We have previously covered in detail the allegations regarding the corruption and fraud by the coordinators of the Boro Park Shomrim. We have named the Players, 1-9, and their relevance. We have preempted news reports involving many of those names well in advance of arrests, indictments and other scandals. So far, we have been on target with our analysis.

We have received countless emails stating that there is no patrol; that the scooters are used by coordinators as their private vehicles. We have wanted to post those article but were waiting on conclusive pictures, evidence, something to substantiate the claims that the vehicles, paid for by taxpayers at huge sums of money, are actually used for private use; and that the entire “Shomrim” network is one of corruption and scandal.

What follows are a series of articles, references to a New York Times article that came out on Friday and others, subtantiating our allegations that the Borough Park Shomrim are nothing more than a Simon Wiesenthal Center in disguise, less legitimate, less untarnished, less corrupt and less a measure of dirty politics at its best. What the two organizations now share, however, is a connection to the NYPD, political favors, pay-for-pay schemes, protectionism, lies, fraud and a conduit for the movement of huge amounts of money and political capital.

Pictures paint a thousand of words. Articles to follow.

See the Boro Park Shomrim scooter in these pictures. Are these buildings in Boro Park? We think not.

Hats off for the person who sent these.

 

Strange Bedfellows: 8 Must-Read Articles On The NYPD-Shomrim Corruption Scandal

http://ditmasparkcorner.com/blog/crime/reading-borough-park-shomrim-featured-new-york-times/

A recent bribery scandal involving the NYPD and members of the Shomrim, an all-volunteer Jewish security patrol, has drawn a glaring media spotlight on how the two organizations function together—and occasionally clash—while enforcing neighborhood justice.

Today’s New York Times article recapped the Shomrim’s civilian and police clashes over the past 10 years, but the nuanced relationship between the civilian patrol and the local 66th precinct deserves a closer look. The Shomrim receives thousands of dollars in funding from city council annually, and often works side-by-side with the NYPD. They serve as patrol squads and unofficial liaisons between police and the Orthodox Jewish communities in Borough Park, Flatbush, Crown Heights, and Williamsburg, according to the Daily Beast. But Shomrim members have also been involved in assaults, and have been caught withholding critical information from police, reports the Times. And in the face of bribery scandals and power struggles, both organizations are under renewed public scrutiny.

For those interested in learning more about the history between the NYPD and civilian security patrols, we’ve collected eight articles to inform the ongoing debate over the question—when it comes to the relationship between local police and the Jewish security patrols, how close is too close for comfort?

If you have more to add to this list, please add them in the comments section below.

• Hella Winston’s deep-dive into the history of orthodox neighborhood patrols (The Daily Beast): Meet the Shomrim—the Hasidic Volunteer ‘Cops’ Who Answer to Nobody

• Amidst the corruption scandal, City Council still grants thousands to Flatbush Shomrim (The Daily News): City Council grants $35,000 to Brooklyn civilian patrol group tied to NYPD corruption scandal

• …but then DeBlasio freezes those funds while the corruption investigation persists (Ditmas Park Corner): City Freezes Grants Earmarked For Borough Park Shomrim

• The arrest of Alex “Shaya” Lichtenstein, Shomrim member linked to bribery scandal (Ditmas Park Corner): Borough Park Shomrim Member Accused Of Bribing Cops For Gun Permits

• More layers in the links to Shomrim and the bribery scandal (Ditmas Park Corner): Yiddish-Speaking Street Gang Called ‘The Forks’ Linked To NYPD Bribery Scandal

• 66th precinct commander Kenneth Quick denies links between precinct Community Affairs Detective Mike Milici and the Shomrim bribery scandal (Ditmas Park Corner): Commander Quick: Borough Park Businessman Named In NYPD Bribery Scandal Had No Authority “In Our Community”

• …But Milici was later fired, and refused to testify in the federal corruption investigation (Ditmas Park Corner): 66th Precinct Detective Questioned In Corruption Probe Has Been Fired

• Today’s Times’ feature on the last 10 years of Shomrim and NYPD ties (The New York Times) : Brooklyn’s Private Jewish Patrols Wield Power. Some Call Them Bullies.

IT’S OKAY THAT WE ARE CORRUPT, WE HAVE GOTTEN OUR FRIENDS AND PALS UNDESERVED SEATS ON BOARD, HELPED TO GET GUN LICENSES FOR PEOPLE THROUGH OUR NYPD CONNECTIONS, PAID PEOPLE TO KEEP OUR FAMILY MEMBERS FROM PROSECUTION…. ITS ALL ABOUT DIVERSITY…

http://www.brooklyneagle.com/articles/2016/6/10/community-board-12-represents-diverse-neighborhoods

Board 12’s diversity is striking, according to Spitzer and Chairperson Yidel Perlstein, who noted that in addition to Orthodox Jews and Muslims, the neighborhoods in the board’s territory include Chinese, Pakistanis and residents from Bangladesh. Kensington, particularly the area around Ocean Parkway, is home to many Russians

The members of the board are…… Sandy Aboulafia,Yakov Abramov, Gabriella Amari, Abe Berkovic, Anna Cali, Jacob Daskal, Hersh Deutsch, Alan J. Dubrow, Joel Eisdorfer, Simcha Eichenstein,Israel Eisdorfer, Roberta Feinstein, Gittel Fekete, Annie Ferdous, Vincent Fiordimondo, Jules Fleischer, Rabbi Bernard Freilich, Jacque Friedman, Sharon Fuchs, Joseph Gross, Jacob Haas, P.E., Edward Handler, Mamnunul Haq, Michael Hidary, Douglas Jablon, Larry Jayson, Mordechai Katz, Akiva Kizelnik, Aaron Kohn, Yee Leung, Joseph Levy, Lily Marinelli, Aaron Minz, Yidel Perlstein, Morty Pupko, Peter Rebenwurzel, Mendel Reiner, Morris Senderovic, David Shlomovich, Yeruchim Silber, Schlome Steinmetz, Samuel Stober, Akiva Tauber, Margaret Tobin, David Vogel, Sol Wahba, Mayer Weber, Ruben Werczberger, Moshe H. Wieder, Rochelle Zami.

The Chairperson and district manager are hasidic jews.
45 of the board’s 50 members are hasidics. why havent pakistanis bangladeshans russians and secular jews been appointed to the board.

Answer CB 12 is CORRUPT.

see http://www.vosizneias.com/2357…

 

Lichtenstein, Ameri and the Shomrim, NYPD??

The Shomrim, Legitimizing a Business of Organized Crime with the NYPD as their Partners…

“it would be a mistake to conclude that for the Shomrim at least these relationships are motivated by the prospect of personal financial gain or status concerns, even though there’s no doubt that having an “in” with the cops can boost one’s standing in the community. Instead, access and influence are the means of achieving a more important communal goal: the freedom to operate as the de facto police force of their communities, but with backup from the cops in the most dangerous situations.

In some sense, it is almost as if the Shomrim view the NYPD as their auxiliary police.”

The Daily Beast

LostMessiah May 15, 2016

We have posted articles on the Shomrim, CB12, Shaya Lichtenstein, David Greenfield, Yanky Daskal, Barry Spitzer and  many of the others, whom in one article we referred to as Players 1-9. We have made no bones about trying to unwind the web of criminal activity and corruption which, after the growing body count in the investigations seems to be not so far off from what is being uncovered. We thank our readers for that information.

The death of Michael Ameri has also been reported by us and information can be found in the article in the Daily Beast, which has bee woven through our comments.

“NYPD Inspector Michael Ameri shot himself Friday in a Department car hours after the FBI reportedly questioned him for a second time about a series of alleged payoffs made by members of New York’s ultra-Orthodox Jewish community—including several big donors to Mayor Bill de Blasio—to high-ranking officials in the NYPD.. There is evidence that he was involved in the bribery/ arms dealing forays of Shaya Licthenstein who was indicted 2 weeks ago.”  The Daily Beast

Shaya Lichtenstein  was a member of Borough Park’s Shomrim, giving him access to high ranking NYPD officers and a series of avenues with which to move money, gun licenses and guns.

There are links we have yet to make: Council Member David Greenfield‘s would not be where he is but for his connections to CB12 and the Shomrim. The power he wields does not end in Boro Park with the Shomrim, with CB 12. That power touch areas of zoning which allow organizations like Allure to get zoning permits changed at will. While Greenfield may not have been involved (directly) in the Rivington deal, he certainly could have his hands in the till on the Red Hook deal, where Barry Braunstein is trying to acquire the rights to a nursing home in a flood zone, a move that requires some changes to zoning. Many within that community think it will be shut down and turned into luxury housing at some point in the not so distant future were Braunstein to be successful. David Greenfield will likely be the one to make that decision.

Barry Spitzer is another one we want to know more about. His involvement in the Shomrim is the least of it. He has access to thousands of dollars and there is little question in our minds, the means to hide his activities. He and Greenfield appear to have a unique relationship wherein neither of their backs go unscratched. Spitzer also seems to have his hands in pockets both here an in Israel and likes to be photographed with high ranking officials, particularly on trips abroad. 

In our view, Inspector Ameri’s death is questionable and the reports of suicide difficult to swallow. While he was allegedly tied to Lichtenstein and the guns dealing, his name did not come up in our research nearly as often as Milici’s name, which is interwoven throughout the reports of corruption, sex, money, diamonds and favors. Maybe we just haven’t gotten there yet. If we had to bet the farm, we would think that Ameri’s death was not a suicide at all and with the power of the Shomrim and the connections to high ranking officials in the NYPD, it is not hard to imagine that someone could have gained access to him and wanted his silence more than they respected his friendship. Our guess…

“A few months before killing himself, Ameri cut ties with one such pretend police officer, Alex “Shaya” Lichtenstein, the New York Post reported. Last month, Lichtenstein was arrested and charged with offering thousands of dollars in cash bribes to cops in the department’s gun licensing bureau in exchange for very tough to obtain in New York City gun permits.

Lichtenstein reportedly bragged that he had procured them for 150 friends and associates, charging $18,000 a pop and paying a third of that to his police connections. According to prosecutors, the scheme had enabled a man with a prior criminal history that included four domestic violence complaints and “a threat against someone’s life” to obtain a gun.” The Daily Beast

We believe that there is more here than meets the eye, not always obvious. The nexus between the Shomrim and the corruption and the NYPD extends, in our view, to diamonds through Reichberg and his connections to the diamond industry and Lev Leviev, the nursing home businesses through Greenfield and others who are responsible for permits and zoning, shady investing through Platinum Partners and its event driven investment portfolios and other investment deals, the Simon Wiesenthal Center and its “sensitivity training program” which when it comes to NYPD is only a front for legitimate interactions and financial exchanges. We also believe that the Shomrim, its players and connections are able to channel and legitimize their own organized crime syndicate through hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions all secretly hidden in plain sight and tied up in pretty LLC packages. This is only speculation, though nothing new.

“That comports with the speculation of one retired NYPD official: “the simple way to connect dots is that guys like [former Chief of Department] Joe Esposito and [former NYPD Traffic Chief] Mike Scagnelli were, at one time, commanders in the 66th precinct. With such longstanding roots in the community, these uniformed guys and the machers stayed close as they rose up the ranks. With [Esposito] as the longest serving chief of the department, the [Hasidim] were in a wonderful position for over 12 years to exercise immense influence over many promotions.”

The former official continued, “(Chief of Transit) Joe Fox himself was a remarkable beneficiary of these discretionary promotions. Everyone loved Fox, and he was the longest serving Borough Commander of Brooklyn South by far. In the 1990s, he achieved three discretionary promotions in 3 years… all while the commander of the 71st precinct [which includes Crown Heights]. From captain to chief in three years, it doesn’t get any better than that.” The Daily Beast

For the entire article, which we have woven with our post, please see:

The Daily Beast

Meet the Shomrim—The Hasidic Volunteer ‘Cops’ Who Answer To Nobody

New York pols from Mayor de Blasio down have supported the groups, even as accounts of their rough conduct pile up.

Shomrim – the Protectors or ..? Players 1-9

Select BSSP Boro Park Shomrim members: pose with former NYPD 66th precinct commanding officer, Deputy Inspector John Sprague. Top row (left to right): Official from DA’s office, Ari Weiss Unit-93, Moses “Moshe” Reichberg Unit-23, Pinny Ringel Unit-60, Joel Klein Unit-37, FSSP Flabush Shomrim Coordinator Chaim Deutsch Unit-01, Abraham Motty “MNS” Brauner Unit-58,
former member Booky Tessler Unit-62, Coordinator Abe Kaztow Unit-65, Yunty Rosenberg Unit-72, Hershy Eichenstein Unit-44
Bottom row: Coordinator Sam Follman Unit-48 and Coordinator Jacob “Yanky” Daskal Unit-05

 

COMMUNITY BOARD 12, SHOMRIM, MONEY, POLITICAL CLOUT, CORRUPTION – JEREMY REICHBERG

The Players in a High Stakes Game of Pseudo Law Enforcement, Borough Park Favoritism and Political Pandering

LostMessiah, April 19, 2016

We owe a lot to our contributors who provide us with information, stories and leads. Every once in a while there are those who provide us with information; and it is hard for us to tell where one story begins and another ends or where another begins and the second one ends. This is one such story.

New York City Hasidic community politics is very complicated. There are private/public community boards and then there are the volunteer Shomrim (protectors) and the paid police/fire/ambulance. The presence of the Shomrim requires the intricate cooperation of municipal organizations including the police, fire department and emergency services. The emergency services in many of these communities are privately owned, privately funded “charities.” In some cases, those so-called charities offer high paying salaries and preferential treatment.

The existence of the Shomrim alone is a source of financial necessity and, of course, the funds flowing into and out of each Shomrim organization can be boundless. It is not clear how it is actually calculated or accounted for, from where the funds are received and to where the funds are distributed. Articles on this topic are somewhat inconsistent as are, we guess, the funds themselves. We do know for certain that taxpayer funds are involved and may be extensive.

While some of the details of the Shomrim organizations may be sketchy, what is clear is that the power brokers within the ultra-Orthodox community whether within the seats they hold as publicly elected officials or within the vast network of Hasidic “charitable LLC’s” have largely unencumbered access to money, political clout, police protection, government advocacy, increased allocations of public assistance and the list goes on and on.

In our view, the players listed below, amongst a larger group, have created the structural framework for years of almost near lawlessness, the flow of endless sums of money, zoning and rezoning, the boundless sustenance of a highly insular community and the flow of taxpayer money into the linings of very specific pockets.

Trying to unwind the fabric of those pockets of corrupt public officials and ultra-Orthodox/Orthodox businessmen is like trying to carefully untangle a spider web into silk thread, equally as sticky and perhaps equally as toxic. You never know when the wolf is going to be a spider or the spider a black widow nor do you know when it is going to attack.

With the arrest of Shaya “Alex” Lichtenstein, we would not have considered the Shomrim to be an access point for arms dealing, falsifying gun licenses and bribery and conspiracy related thereto. That possibility had not come across our desktops and we have debated all day whether we would have believed it if it had. Licthenstein and co. have been added as players in this game of scandal and corruption today.

In 2016 a high level probe into funds that were spent on banquets for New York City cops (McDonald Avenue) brought Community Board 12 (CB12) into the limelight. CB12 is the Community board out of Borough Park, Precinct 66. It was in that precinct that Hamlet Peralta owned a club, frequented by NYPD police officials. It may have been in that club that Hamlet Peralta conducted his businesses including a Ponzi Scheme in which Norman Seabrook invested $5M of Corrections Officers Benevolent Association funds. It was at about that time, that we were introduced to two people who have become synonymous with New York City shady wheeling and dealing. We will focus on one of those two, who we have referred to as “Player 1.”

Player 1 – JEREMY REICHBERG

Feast on McDonald Avenue in Midwood, District Manager Barry Spitzer and Peralta’s Booze Business II, Community Board 12

Photos: Brooklyn Community Board 12 Holds First Annual Awards Dinner, Hosted by Community Board 12 Chairman Yidel Perlstein (JDN)Barry Spitzer and the Peralta Connection – Community Board 12

Update

LostMessiah, April 12, 2015

In our initial article entitled “Feast on McDonald Avenue in Midwood, District Manager Barry Spitzer and Peralta’s Booze Business” we reported in part using information from A Daily News Article published on April 7th entitled: FBI investigation into NYPD corruption focuses on off-the-books banquet for Midwood cops

When referring to the Daily News article, we did not focus on Community Board 12 and their potential involvement with any corruption directly. It was not on our radar. However, we have since been provided information by an anonymous source and are providing an update as follows:

With regard to the inner workings of Community Board 12 and the de Blasio Administration, we have been told:

(1). Barry Spitzer, the District Manager who said on the record that he has absolute discretion in spending the Board funds, is a former deputy chief of staff to Councilman David Greenfied [corrected].

(2) Greenfield orchestrated a coup by putting in his chairperson Yodel Perlstein and his District Manager Barry Spitzer. The opinion of our source and apparently shared by members of the community, is that Greenfield  threw out the previous District Manager and chair so that he would have greater political clout.

(3) Yeruchim Silber, Vice Chair of Brooklyn Community Board 12, was on the staff of Mayor Deblasio.

(4) Pinny Ringel is Deblasio’s liaison to the Orthodox Jewish community.

(5) Controller Stringer paid the invoices clearly showing a private party.

The picture is taken from the Twitter photos of March 21st  Pinny Ringel.

 

Going back to the original Daily News article, please see as follows and click, here.

The 2014 banquet organized by Community Board 12 in honor of police in Brooklyn’s 66th Precinct featured heaping helpings of baked ziti, chicken parmesan, barbecue ribs, veggies and salad that could serve 370 people.

TOP NYPD BRASS WRONGLY ACCEPTED SPLASHY GIFTS: SOURCE

The feast on McDonald Ave. in Midwood cost $2,960 in taxpayer money, records from Bassett Caterers on Ave. X show.

A lawyer and former member of the board, Aaron Tyk, who says the FBI questioned him about the party, said the expense was never approved by the board and that it was kept secret by District Manager Barry Spitzer.

Tyk alleges in letters to the city Department of Investigation and the Controller’s office that he was wrongly booted from the board after complaining about the secret feast. A lawsuit stemming from the dispute was dismissed.

“Something like this, a private party, is unprecedented and problematic,” Tyk said, adding the FBI had contacted him, not vice versa.

Spitzer, the board’s district manager, insisted the party was properly paid for and held on June 11, 2014, to honor the precinct’s cops on medal day, as well as other public servants.

“I signed off on the expenses the same way I do on all of the board’s expenses. Our board’s normal procedure does not include a requirement of documentation of approval by the board on any expense,” Spitzer told the Daily News.

The FBI inquiry revolves around businessmen who allegedly sought to curry favor with high-ranking police brass, including Philip Banks, a former Chief of Department.

Banks, who a source has said received a subpoena more than a year ago, once served as second in command of Patrol Borough Brooklyn South, which includes the 66th Precinct.