Jacob Daskal – The Satmar Owned … Time to Sunset the Shomrim

It’s time to sunset the scandal-ridden Shomrim

Does New York City — with its once-unimaginable record-low crime rates — still need private (but city-funded) citizen-patrol groups?

The question became more pressing with the arrest Thursday of Jacob Daskal, politically wired president and co-founder of the Boro Park Shomrim, on charges he repeatedly raped a 15-year-old girl over a period of months in his home.

It’s not the Brooklyn group’s first brush with the law, either.

Last year, Shomrim official Alex “Shaya” Lichtenstein was sentenced to 32 months in prison for bribing cops on a regular basis to get hard-to-obtain full-carry handgun permits for paying clients, including some with criminal records.

The group itself has been accused of violently beating suspects it apprehends. And Daskal reportedly was able to arrange for Orthodox Jews arrested for minor crimes to avoid being booked through the system.

Shomrim faced a round of criticism — including from then-Police Commissioner Ray Kelly — in 2011 when it waited three hours before notifying the NYPD of the disappearance of 8-year-old Leiby Kletzky, who was later found murdered.

Yes, it can be useful for police to establish a rapport with local residents, especially in a community as insular as Borough Park. And a citizen patrol can be an asset in discouraging graffiti and vandalism.

But the Boro Park Shomrim were born during the out-of-control crime wave of the pre-Giuliani era. And those days thankfully are long over.

To read the remainder of the article click here.

The Satmar Ruled Brooklyn Part V – From a 2016 Article, The Shomrim and their Unbridled Power

Time to Bridle the Shomrim’s Ability to Behave with Impunity – Sunset

To our Readers: We have taken the blow from a 2016 post on another blog “Haemtza”. There is nothing in our use of the below post that should indicate that the blogger who wrote the piece endorses our site. Please click to the original to read it in its original format.

We believe the piece has value, even more today than on the date it was written because, amongst other things, it predates the arrest of Yanky (Jacob Daskal) on sexual assault charges, which we believe was an arrest that characterizes the impunity with which the Shomrim behave.

We feel that today, more than in 2016 when this piece was written, there is reason to be concerned by the unbridled power of the Shomrim.

We feel that the Shomrim is a dangerous enterprise, not governed by the same rules, guidelines and hierarchies that govern law enforcement proper; and for that reason, if no other, it represents lawless vigilantism.

We believe that it is time to dismantle New York’s Shomrim forces for “Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely” Lord Acton, and the Shomrim have outgrown the ability of any other police force to properly enforce its activity. It is a form of government sanctioned control over a community and control over others from within that community and is dangerous. It will only become more dangerous if not reined in now.

Emes Ve-Emunah

A Forum for Orthodox Jewish thought on Halacha, Hashkafa, and the social issues of our time.

Thursday, May 26, 2016

Shomrim – the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

There is much that is good about the Chasidic world. It is a brotherhood like no other. It is that sense of brotherhood that in my view was the impetus for forming the Shomrim Society back 1977. Shomrim are a group of usually Chasidic Jews that are volunteer neighborhood watchmen. Kind of like Curtis Slewa’s Guardian Angels. They patrol Jewish neighborhoods in order to provide protection against things like vandalism, muggings, assault and domestic violence.

The Shomrim Society has spread beyond its original borders of Williamsburg, Crown Heights, Boro Park, and Flatbush . There are now branches in cities like Baltimore, Miami, Lakewood, and London.

The fact is that a lot of Jewish residents in those areas are happy that they exist. They seem to have political support and some (if not universal) police support – who are happy to have some of their burden relieved by them. Shomrim even has some government funding. They not only add an extra layer of protection to those Jewish neighborhoods, they are often seen by Jewish residents as a first line of defense against crime. Their response time is generally a lot quicker than the police.

There is not a doubt in my mind that there has been more than one occasion where an elderly victim was spared a mugging or an assault because of their quick response. And not all of the people they help are Orthodox Jews. According to a 2014 story in the Hackney Gazette:

…around 70% of the victims (in London) they help are not from the Orthodox Jewish community, usually just local residents from any race or religion.

Although I tend to doubt whether that 70% figure is anywhere near in a Chasidic enclaves like Williamsburg, I do believe that if a caller in distress is not Jewish, they will respond to them just the same.

But that is not the end of the story. I have had my issues with these self appointed watch groups. While there may be a benefit to having that kind of protection by one’s own people, there is a definite downside that makes me question their ultimate value.

The truth is I never liked the idea of volunteer neighborhood watch groups. My feeling has always been that despite the fact that theywere created to protect their communities, many of them were basically police ‘wannabes’ looking for adventure but untrained to do police work.

True, they do not carry weapons (thank God). But a lot of damage can be done with a fist. Or a foot. Or a stick. In their zeal to protect the innocent, they will sometimes go overboard. And in some cases hurt innocent people – mistaking them for a perpetrator. Now this can happen to police too. We all know what has been happening on this front these days. Ask the families of mostly black victims unjustly killed or beaten by the police in cities all over this country.

The difference is that the police are trained to know when and how to react – and how much force to use. So that hopefully – as bad as the recent cases of police brutality have been – they are a very small minority of the police department. As a percentage of the whole, the numbers are probably miniscule. There are bad apples in every group. But Shomrim have no such training. Certainly not on the level of the police department.

 

So, although I am happy that many people have been spared great tragedy as a result of quick response by Shomrim – preventing for example violence against an elderly Jew –  it comes at a terrible price. A price that can best be described in a Forward article by attorney, Michael Lesher. If it were up to him, he would abolish these groups entirely. And with good reason:

The Brooklyn Hasidim accused of beating a young, gay black man named Taj Patterson back in 2013 are reportedly about to get a plea deal so sweet, they won’t serve a single day in prison. Patterson, who was beaten so badly that he was left blind in one eye, and who had homophobic slurs hurled at him throughout the ordeal, is surely having a hard time understanding the aftermath.

I don’t know the details of this case. But it surely smacks of something way beyond protecting fellow Jews. I don’t think that beating and blinding a suspect while hurling homophobic insults at them is what protecting fellow Jews is all about. And this is not the first nor only case where excessive force was used. More from Mr. Lesher:

For too long we’ve allowed a system of Jewish-run patrols to dominate the heavily Orthodox Jewish enclaves of Brooklyn, usurping the role of the official police force (with key support from vote-hungry politicians), despite their record of violence toward non-Jews. And for years we’ve held our tongues as the patrols’ unchecked behavior carried on… When retired police captain William Plackenmeyer told Newsday in 2003, “In Brooklyn, it almost seemed like there were two penal codes, one for the Hasidic community and one for everyone else…”

When Michael wrote an article in the New York Post exposing some uncomfortable truths about Shomrim this was in part the response he got:

To continue reading click here.

The Shomrim Society Scholarship Fund Inc. – A Not-for-Profit “Government Associated Entity” – Scholarships? Part I

 

A Shomrim Scholarship Fund That Doesn’t Seem to Offer Scholarships

The notion of “scholarships implies that there is money being granted to help students or young people study, become scholars. Perhaps the notion of “scholarship” in this context is for Yeshivas or other schools. Perhaps it is intended that the beneficiaries will attend a college. Perhaps it is intended that the beneficiaries will have a better opportunity afforded to them to become productive members of society.  But a Scholarship Fund that does not seem to offer scholarships raises questions. And we can’t seem to add up the numbers nor can we find that this organization really does offer scholarships.

We question the validity of this organization which bills itself as having a governmental affiliation. If there is a governmental affiliation, we question the plausibility of that notion and how that ties into scholarships. We question the use of monies of a not-for-profit/tax exempt entity referring to itself as a scholarship fund for anything but scholarship. Follow the trail of breadcrumbs below.

In 2016, the last year for which the Shomrim Society Scholarship Fund Inc. has an available publicly filed tax return (990), there were $464,846 in Net assets (page 1) That number was up from the year before which was $459,947 in Net Assets line 22. The difference, or the increase is $4,899.00.

The entity claims $11,000.00 in expenses (See Page 2 Line 4e) (which is listed as scholarships in one place and separate expenses in another) which technically means, the increase in total is $15,899.00.

Under the Checklist of Required Schedules (Page 3) they answer “Yes” to whether or not the entity is a 501(c)(3) or a 4947(a)(1) entity which is then later described in Schedule A. 

Under the Checklist of Required Schedules (Page 3) they answer “Yes” to whether the entity has “other assets in Part X, line 15 that is 5% or more of its total assets reported in Part X, line 16” and if so there should be a Schedule D, Part IX.

On Page 4, line 22 they answer “Yes” to “Did the organization report more than $5,000 of grants or other assistance to or for domestic individuals on Part IX, column (A), line 2” and if so there are schedules to be attached. Presumably, that is part of the $11,000.00 listed earlier.

On line 34 they answer that the organization is related to other tax-exempt organizations (we already know the Shomrim are interconnected entities, so this is no surprise).

Then on line 38 they say that there are other explanations to be added.

Interestingly, and something we do not understand, there is a “funeral liaison” (Page 8). Given that this entity bills itself as offering scholarships, one must ask why there needs to be a funeral liaison. 

Page 9 lists losses, though de minimus in “investment income” and gross amounts of sales from “other assets”. The “other assets” listed are securities in the amount of $75,569 which had an initial basis of $79,998 (thereby indicating a loss of $4,429). But there is also $5,569 in Investment income and total revenue of $1,700.00.

On Page 10 line 2 lists grants of $11,000.00 (as expenses) and then other functional expenses in the amount of $2,192 for a total amount of expenses being $13,192.00

Page 11, otherwise known as Part X (Balance sheet) is where things get interesting. There was a beginning of the year non-interest bearing asset of $213,280.00 with an end of the year at $202,184.00. The difference is -$11,096.00. That is listed on line 1. On line 11, the Sholarship Fund lists publicly traded securities, beginning of the year $245,962.00 and end of the year $157,662.00. One would have expected that the difference would have been the -$75,569.00 number listed on page 9 – losses from securities. But the difference actually comes out to -$88,300.00. It is unclear what happened to $12,731.00 or the difference between what is listed on page 9 as losses and what is listed on Part X as losses from securities.

There is then a number listed as $105,000 as “other assets” line 15 which was not there at the beginning of the tax year. One would think that that number would have added $105,000 to the previous year’s net assets; but that is not done. Somewhere money disappeared and then reappeared in the form of “other assets.”

Line 16 of Page 11 lists Total Assets of $460,047 at the beginning of the year and E/O/Y at $464,846 or a difference (increase) of $4,799.00.  We think that the total liabilities line which is 26 may help to make that number match the difference of $4,899.00 on Page 1 Line 22.

There is a net unrealized gain on investments listed on page 12 of $16,391 (line 5); but there was a loss in the equity position and then this intangible that seems inexplicable.

Schedule A claims that the entity is a line 6 – “federal, state or local government or governmental unit” 170(b)(1)(A)(v). But aren’t the Shomrim separate from our government? Aren’t they private security entities within the communities? And, are their “Scholarship Funds” government scholarship funds?

On Supplemental Schedule I “Grants and Other Assistance to Organizations, Governments and Individuals in the United States” there is nothing listed. So what happened to the $11,000.00 supposedly granted to 5 individuals. Where did that money go? And if not within the United States, why is an entity claiming to be part of our governmental entities giving money to non-US Governments or Individuals?

The Grants to the 5 individuals is, indeed, listed on Page 2 of Schedule I – an award of $11,000.00 presumably pro-rata to 5 recipients. 

Schedule R lists two affiliated entities: 1) Shomrim Society Inc. (Cemetery) – 501(c)(13) and Shomrim Society I (Fraternal) 501(c)(4). Presumably, the money runs by and between these entities which is the extent of their affiliation. 

We outright question the validity of an organization that refers to itself as a scholarship fund but gives no scholarships. It liaises with cemetery organizations but, again is listed as a scholarship fund. To avoid being heartless, we recognize that perhaps this organization helped to fund the burial of 5 individuals, which could very well be. But there again, it refers to itself as a “scholarship” fund. 

The Satmar-Ruled Brooklyn pt. 3: Councilmember Steve Levin’s $64,000 Donation to Shomrim, Taj Peterson

Levin Funds Patrol Tied to Anti-Gay Assault

Brooklyn councilmember aids Orthodox group that detained, beat Taj Patterson

BY DUNCAN OSBORNE

City Councilmember Steve Levin, who is a member of that body’s Progressive Caucus and an LGBTQ community supporter, has given at least $64,500 in Council discretionary funds to a Brooklyn community patrol that attacked a gay African-American man in Williamsburg in 2013, leaving the man blind in one eye.

Levin, who was first elected to the City Council in 2009 and is now serving his third term having benefited from the one-time change to the city’s two-term limit, represents a district that includes Williamsburg, Greenpoint, and other Brooklyn neighborhoods.

In Williamsburg, the large Orthodox Jewish community is ostensibly protected by the Shmira Volunteer Patrol, which also uses the name Williamsburg Safety Patrol. In December 2013, Shmira members set upon Taj Patterson, now 28, when he was observed walking in the street on Flushing Avenue in Williamsburg. He suffered a broken eye socket, bruises, abrasions, and was left blind in one eye. No charges were ever filed against Patterson.

This patrol and others serving Orthodox Jewish communities say that they merely detain criminal suspects until police arrive. Witnesses to the attack who testified in the trial of one patrol member described a mob of roughly 20 men. Videos showed the men racing in cars to the site of the attack at roughly the same time.

Pinchas Braver and Abraham Winkler pleaded guilty to unlawful imprisonment in the attack. Charges against Aharon Hollender and Joseph Fried were dropped. Mayer Herskovic refused a deal and his non-jury trial took place in 2016 before Judge Danny Chun in Brooklyn Supreme Court. He faced multiple counts of unlawful imprisonment, assault, gang assault, and menacing.

Herskovic was convicted because his DNA was found on Patterson’s sneaker that had been pulled from his foot by the same man who jabbed a thumb in his eye and kicked him in the face, Patterson testified during the trial. That man took the sneaker and tossed it on to a nearby roof where police recovered it six days after the attack. Herskovic was sentenced to four years in prison in 2017, but was allowed to remain free while he appealed.

Last year, a state appeals court found that the evidence at trial was “legally sufficient to establish the defendant’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt,” but after using its “independent factual review power, we conclude that the verdict of guilt was against the weight of the evidence.”

The conviction was reversed and Herskovic’s indictment was dismissed. The issue was that the DNA sample was small and tested using high sensitivity DNA testing. It was also a mix of Patterson’s DNA and Herskovic’s DNA. The result was that the ratio that expresses the confidence that the DNA belongs to a particular person was lower than what is usually found with larger and unmixed samples.

Patterson has filed lawsuits in state and federal court against the patrol, individual members of the patrol, and the city. The federal case has been dismissed though Patterson has appealed that dismissal. The state lawsuit is ongoing.

Levin first supported the patrol with $9,000 in the city’s 2011 fiscal year. Since then he has given the patrol $15,000 in 2016, $16,500 in 2017, $12,000 in 2018, and $12,000 in the 2019 fiscal year.

In a motion filed last year in federal court by the city’s Law Department, the city said, “It is beyond dispute that plaintiff-appellant Taj Patterson was the victim of a horrific hate crime perpetrated by a vigilante group, and is entitled to justice.”

The city’s motion said the patrol was a “hate-filled mob” that decided “to illegally attack an innocent victim while cloaked in the dark of night,” that the attackers were acting on a “sadistic urge to violently beat Taj Patterson,” and that the attackers knew “that their conduct was illegal.”

The city also said that Patterson’s attackers “allegedly belonged” to “an Orthodox Jewish neighborhood safety patrol.”

Citing a statement issued by the patrol in 2014, Levin wrote in an email that only one of the five men who faced criminal charges, Winkler, was a patrol member and that he was expelled from the patrol in 2014.

“The assault on Mr. Patterson is incredibly serious and I firmly believe that anyone who took part in the assault must face the consequenc­es,” Levin wrote in an email. “That said, I have not seen evidence that Williamsburg Safety Patrol, as an organization, took part in or condoned the assault on Mr. Patterson nor have I seen evidence that they have protected any of their volunteers from investigation or prosecution. In fact, they moved to remove one of their volunteers, Mr. Winkler, when he was charged with taking part in the assault.”

To read the remainder of the article click here.

The Satmar-Ruled Brooklyn pt. 2: The Shomrim Acting with Impunity… and Money

Dear Reader:

The following article was not written by LM. We have republished it from another source http://www.patheos.com. It was written by Adam Lee. We did not take the liberty of correcting any typos or grammatical errors but left it as published. We emphasize, with all of our reposts, that the publication to our site should not be deemed to be an endorsement of our site by anyone else, nor an endorsement of their site by us. When there are views in common, we believe they are worth sharing.

LM

 

The Problem of the Shomrim

I’ve written before about the malign influence of New York’s ultra-Orthodox Jewish sect. They want to shut out the modern world and recreate a medieval theocracy, and because their members vote in lockstep obedience to the commands of their rabbis, they wield outsized political power.

In the Brooklyn neighborhoods and other towns where they’re the majority, they’ve committed one outrage after another: taking over school boards and strip-mining public schools, trying to impose gender apartheid on public spaces, prohibiting boys and especially girls from receiving an education, perpetuating barbaric religious rituals, brutally harassing and persecuting ex-members… and they do all this while shamelessly siphoning government assistance from the society they live in, demanding that others labor to feed, clothe and house them while they engage in lives of endless religious study.

But today’s outrage may exceed all of those.

It comes from a post I saw on Reddit’s popular Legal Advice forum. The poster, who’s a gay man, wrote a plea for help with this title: I am being harassed by the orthodox Jewish “police” in my home. This has been going on for almost 2 years since I moved in. I am at my wits end, what can I do to stop it?

He begins:

I live in Brooklyn NY. I purchased a condo about 2 years ago in a building where a good chunk of the apartments are rented out by Orthodox families. i would say that 45% of the building is occupied by Orthodox families renting and the rest are condos owned + occupied by non orthodox people. I honestly did not care and did not think this would be a problem.

However, it seems the other families in his apartment building don’t share his live-and-let-live attitude. They disagree with his “lifestyle”, so they’ve been trying to harass and intimidate him into moving out:

The issue is that they have been using the Jewish police to harass me. To give you an idea of the shit I am dealing with I’ll tell you what prompted this post. I chose to have a Superbowl viewing party today. About 30 minutes into the start of the party (when there were FIVE people here) I get a knock at my door and standing there are two fake police who try to tell me they got a ‘noise complaint’ and a complaint that we are using ‘illicit substances’ that i have to end my party. We were in my yard at this point literately just talking and smoking (cigs).

Yes, he said “fake police”. We’ll get to that.

But it gets even more shocking. The Hasidim’s harassment has been escalating over time, until it’s come to this point:

Since then, they have been standing outside of my building trying to prevent people I INVITED from entering and have been harassing my guess, treating to ticket them and demanding to search them.

When the poster was asked to clarify, he explained:

the main door opens by buzzer. ill buzz someone in and they will physically stand shoulder to shoulder in front of the doorway and tell my guest that they dont have permission to enter (after i just buzzed them in) and if they try to push past them will physically push them out and threaten to assault them if they keep trying to get in.

now whenever someone is coming over who doesnt have a key I always go down and open the door myself but i have to ask them 15 times to move to let me do so and sometimes have to call the nypd to come and make them move to let people in.

The group that’s harassing this person is called the shomrim, Hebrew for “guards”. They’re a neighborhood watch that’s active in ultra-Orthodox communities. They style themselves a civilian auxiliary whose only goal is to assist the police in protecting their neighborhoods from crime. The reality, according to this poster and to many others who’ve had experience with them, is that they operate as a vigilante mob – harassing outsiders, violently beating anyone they suspect of committing a crime, and treating ultra-Orthodox religious dogma as if it were law.

A New York Times article from 2016 has some examples, like this one:

Shortly before 5 a.m. on Dec. 1, 2013, a young black man named Taj Patterson was walking home through Hasidic Williamsburg after a night out with his friends. Mr. Patterson, a fashion student, was drunk. As he made his way up Flushing Avenue, a local shomrim group received a call about someone vandalizing cars. What was soon a throng of more than a dozen people stopped Mr. Patterson on a quiet stretch of Flushing in between Spencer and Walworth Streets. He resisted; there was a scuffle. Mr. Patterson soon lay on the ground with a crushed eye socket, a torn retina and permanent blindness in his right eye.

But while they’re swift to unleash mob violence on outsiders, especially people of color, they take a see-no-evil, hear-no-evil attitude when it comes to crimes committed by one of their own:

“Who is really controlling the Borough Park police station?” asked Joe Levin, a Hasidic private investigator who has clashed with the shomrim. “It’s not the N.Y.P.D.”

A few years ago, Mr. Levin said he handled a divorce case where a husband was beating his wife. One day, he added, the woman was hurt so badly that an ambulance removed her from her home on a stretcher. The police and the shomrim were also at the scene, he said, but no one did a thing when the husband rushed out, flipped the stretcher and knocked her to the ground.

“I saw this with my own eyes — everybody did,” Mr. Levin said.

The worst part is that, because of the Hasidim’s political pull, the shomrim have virtual impunity. The Legal Advice poster says that he’s tried many times to get the real police to intervene and stop this brazen harassment of him and his guests. Even with video evidence, they refuse to act:

The Satmar-Ruled Brooklyn pt.1: Yanky Daskal and Allegations of Sexual Abuse

Yanky Jacob Daskal, and his Exploits – A Protected Member of the Shomrim and Influential – 

Getting away with reprehensible abuses….. and there are others.

The following articles are being posted from www.corruptionbycops.com . They have reposted a number of our articles over the years for which we are most grateful. In 2016 we outlined a history of 9 of the Shomrim which can be seen on their site by clicking, here. 

Please take the time to read and familiarize yourself with that site. It is about time others are speaking up. It might be about time that the police, the DA, the supposedly trustworthy trusted officials and the honest amongst the Satmar and elsewhere finally take back the currently corrupt Satmar-ruled Brooklyn.

Certainly the vote of that bloc can’t really be enough to close our eyes to all of their crimes. 

We will be posting several articles under the heading, “Taking Back the Satmar- Ruled Brooklyn.” 

 

JANUARY 8, 2019 BY YEVGEN ISAAC FROMER, PH.D

The influential leader of a Brooklyn safety patrol known as the SHOMRIM had been sexually abusing a teenage girl,

Yanky Jacob Daskal, 59, who runs the Shomrim’s Brooklyn South Safety Patrol, a Hasidic neighborhood watch group, abused the girl between August and November of last year, police said…

 

Brooklyn safety official charged with raping 16-year-old girl

By Rocco Parascandola
| NEW YORK DAILY NEWS |May 10, 2018

An official with an influential neighborhood watch group in Brooklyn has been charged with raping a 16-year-old girl, police said Thursday.
Jacob Daskal, 59, who runs the Shomrim’s Brooklyn South Safety Patrol, a Hasidic neighborhood watch group, abused the girl between August and November of last year, police said.

Daskal was charged with rape and criminal sex act, plus three misdemeanors — forcible touching, sex abuse and acting in a manner injurious to a child.

Shomrim’s links to law enforcement have been a subplot in the ongoing federal probe involving two businessmen and a number of NYPD supervisors. In 2016, the FBI investigated what role the supervisors may have played in securing gun licenses for members of Shomrim. Daskal, who lives in Borough Park and has strong ties to the NYPD, was not charged in that case.
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/brooklyn/brooklyn-safety-official-charged-raping-16-year-old-girl-article-1.3982706

To continue reading click here.

Brooklyn Safety Patrol Leader Is Charged in Sex Abuse of Teen

Jakob Daskal, the head of the Brooklyn South Safety Patrol, leaves court in Brooklyn on Friday after he was arraigned on charges that he sexually assaulted a 15-year-old girl.CreditStephanie Keith for The New York Times

By Al BakerMay 11, 2018

On Wednesday, sex crimes investigators for the New York Police Department received a troubling report: The influential leader of a Brooklyn safety patrol known as the shomrim had been sexually abusing a teenage girl, the police were told.

A day later, detectives arrested the man, Jacob Daskal, a leader of one faction of what has been, since the 1970s, a sort of auxiliary police force for the ultra-Orthodox Jews of Brooklyn’s Borough Park, Crown Heights, Flatbush and Williamsburg neighborhoods.

Mr. Daskal, 59, was charged with statutory rape, sexual abuse and other crimes. The authorities believe the abuse took place at Mr. Daskal’s home between August and November of last year, when the girl, who is now 16, was a year younger. But the inquiry is continuing, to determine if the alleged abuse occurred over a longer period of time or if there were additional victims.

The revelations cast another shadow over a group that has long cultivated relationships with New York’s law enforcement and elected leaders — and that has secured government funding for vehicles, phones and other equipment integral to its brand of security for some of the city’s most insular populations. On several occasions, critics have questioned whether the shomrim’s proximity to authority has fostered vigilantism or corruption.

In May 2016, two men linked to the shomrim of Williamsburg admitted to taking part in the assault of a black man in their neighborhood. A month earlier, Alex Lichtenstein, a former member of Mr. Daskal’s Brooklyn South Safety Patrol, which covers Borough Park, was arrested on federal charges of trying to secure handgun permits by offering the police thousands of dollars in cash bribes.
In the case of Mr. Daskal, 59, he was arrested at 12:30 p.m. on Thursday, within the 77th police precinct, the police said. He was then taken to the Brooklyn Special Victims squad, they said.On Friday, the police said that Mr. Daskal had been charged with third-degree rape; third-degree criminal sex act; forcible touching; acting in a manner injurious to a child less than 17; and third-degree sexual abuse. He shuffled, handcuffed, into court for arraignment and pleaded not guilty before Judge Deborah Dowling, who issued an order of protection on behalf of his accuser.
Evan Lipton, a lawyer for Mr. Daskal, said his client was prepared to surrender his passport.
Afterward, as Mr. Daskal was released on bail, some supporters surrounded him in a hallway as Mr. Lipton told him, “Your phones have been seized.”
It was not immediately clear what triggered Wednesday’s report to the police.
Around Borough Park, people seemed dazed by the news of the arrest.

“This is the last thing anybody would believe,” said one man, a neighbor, who stood outside Mr. Daskal’s house about noon, watching as a van from the Crime Scene Unit pulled to the curb. Throughout the morning, investigators, some wearing latex gloves, converged on the brick duplex set back from 46th Street as onlookers, including several children, gathered outside.

On those same streets, the shomrim are seen as quick-acting stand-ins for police officers. With their two-way radios and social media links, they have won praise for keeping a watchful eye on the community, chasing down burglars, controlling crowds and locating the missing.
Residents, many of whom are Yiddish-speaking and cling to a culture rooted in preindustrial Europe, trust the shomrim as liaisons to secular authorities, who can negotiate language barriers and complex social mores.
According to state campaign finance records, Mr. Daskal has been a consistent political contributor over the years.
Police officials, too, have embraced the shomrim. It is commonplace for shomrim leaders to attend promotion ceremonies at Police Headquarters in Lower Manhattan.

In 2015, a year before he became police commissioner, James P. O’Neill, then the chief of department, threw out the first pitch at an annual softball game between officers from the 66th Precinct and members of the Borough Park shomrim. Mr. Lichtenstein played in that game, the Greenfield Classic, named for David G. Greenfield, a city councilman who represents the district. In an interview in 2016, however, Mr. Daskal denied that Mr. Lichtenstein’s criminal case involving the gun permits had anything to do with the shomrim.

On Friday, as investigators streamed in and out of Mr. Daskal’s house, signs of their connections were evident. Parked in the street, near Mr. Daskal’s driveway, were a pair of shomrim vehicles outfitted like police patrol cars: emergency lights; a shield logo; the words “Courtesy Professionalism Respect” written on the side.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/11/nyregion/brooklyn-shomrim-leader-charged-sex-abuse.html

 

To continue reading the articles in their entirety, click here.

Menahem Stark, Messages from the Grave – Shomrim and the Kidnapping… from the Rechnitz Files

Undisclosed de Blasio emails show cozy relationship with corrupt donor

 

City Hall withheld nearly two dozen e-mails that show Mayor de Blasio had a much cozier relationship with Jona Rechnitz than he has admitted — even telling the crooked developer to reach out “anytime I can help,” The Post has learned.

De Blasio was corresponding with Rechnitz for more than two years, from late in his first campaign in October 2013 through February 2016, despite the mayor’s April 2016 claim that he and the admitted briber were “not particularly close,” the previously undisclosed e-mails show.

“Jona, really enjoyed our mtg,” de Blasio wrote on Oct. 4, 2013, following receipt of $36,700 in cash Rech­nitz had collected for him. “Call upon me anytime I can help. And thanks for your extraordinary assistance for my cause — means a lot to me.”

Other e-mails obtained by The Post show de Blasio calling Rechnitz “my friend,” “brother” and “a mensch” — Yiddish for “a person of integrity and honor.” One even reveals that he told Rechnitz to keep their communications discreet.

“And always stay in touch, but please do via this email or via cell rather than text,” de Blasio wrote from his personal e-mail account — deblasio@att.blackberry.net — on Oct. 2, 2014. “Much easier for me. Thanks again for all your help.”

The correspondences also reveal the usually thin-skinned mayor graciously accepting an apology from Rechnitz for an unexplained slight, writing, “No worries” during an exchange of e-mails on Dec. 3, 2013.

And when Rechnitz, now 36, wrote, “Thnx I only mean well and am young and learning,” de Blasio, 57, wrote back two minutes later, taking a fatherly tone as he said, “We are all learning . . .”

The 21 e-mails written by de Blasio were not produced by City Hall in response to a 2016 Freedom of Information Law request by The Post, even though officials turned over 286 pages of correspondence involving de Blasio, Rechnitz and Reichberg during 2014.

The newly discovered e-mails between de Blasio and Rechnitz also add to others that prosecutors unveiled last month in Manhattan federal court, where they were introduced as evidence against Reichberg and former NYPD Deputy Inspector James Grant.

But the copies obtained by The Post this week include exchanges that were redacted in court papers, with some e-mails showing how de Blasio praised Rechnitz for advising him to attend an anti-crime CompStat meeting at NYPD Headquarters and later thanking him for the suggestion.

Another newly obtained e-mail shows de Blasio thanking Rechnitz for tipping him off that the private Jewish Shomrim security patrol knew about the 2014 kidnapping and slaying of Menachem “Max” Stark two hours before the NYPD did.

“That’s a real issue. Thanks for raising it,” de Blasio wrote on Jan. 4, 2014.

Records released by City Hall also show that de Blasio forwarded Rechnitz’s e-mail to then-Police Commissioner Bill Bratton and other officials.