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Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Holocaust Survivor Leads Charge in Planned NYS Senate Corruption Hearings

79-Year-Old Holocaust Survivor To Testify at NY State Senate Judiciary Corruption Hearings
by Frank N. Brady - May 19, 2009

As a young girl, Mrs. Gizella Weisshaus survived the Holocaust, but recently and now 79-years-old, she finds herself on the growing list of victims ensnarled in the Manhattan attorney ethics scandal shaking the New York State Court system. In a letter to staff at New York State Senator John L. Sampson's Senate Committee, dated May 18, 2009, Mrs. Weisshaus has formally requested to testify at hearings expected to be made public soon where the integrity of the statewide judicial and attorney oversight structure is at issue.

Background

In July of 2007, it became publicly known that many ethics complaints against attorneys in the Bronx and Manhattan were methodically mishandled-- effectively buried or stalled—due to politically-based connections, favors or back-room deals. The "Patentgate" matter, which became known world-wide, quickly highlighted the need in New York for federal intervention since the alleged theft of dozens of U.S. patents by the inventor's own New York lawyers-- the once respected and politically connected Proskauer Rose law firm-- went largely and substantively unaddressed. The Patentgate ethics complaints were obscured in New York at the very same time the identical issues found The United States Department of Justice widening their own investigation and, additionally, where members of the U.S. Senate and House Judiciary committees called for further probes. The ongoing ethics shake-up then resulted in the quickly announced "retirement" of Manhattan's top State ethics Chief Counsel, Thomas J. Cahill, Esq., and whose replacement, Alan Friedberg, quickly became the focus of even more controversy and allegations of corrupt practices.  Gizella Weisshaus quickly learned the details of "Patentgate" and of the other complaints like her own- all confirmation of the ugly underbelly of New York's so-called "ethics" committees.   

Holocaust Survivor meets New York “Ethics”

Mrs. Gizella Weisshaus was the named plaintiff in the 1996 filed historic lawsuit against Swiss banks that, after being designated as a class action proceeding, was settled in 1998 on behalf of thousands of Holocaust survivors for $1.25 billion.

Gizella, however, opted out of that settlement because, she says, certain involved attorneys were more interested in paying themselves millions of dollars even before some of the survivors had received any money. She would also learn, she says, that someone "manufactured" a necessary amended complaint in 2000 by backdating that court document to 1997. And she would also find that in an unrelated estate proceeding where she was the executrix, her own lawyer, Edward D. Fagan, had failed to deposit more than $82,000.00 into an attorney escrow account choosing, instead, to use the money for his own various personal expenses. (Mr. Fagan also represented Mrs. Weisshaus in the subsequent filing against the Swiss banks and from where he ultimately received millions of dollars in legal fees)

The Devil's Advocate

An attorney ethics complaint followed, and in a letter dated May 6, 1998, attorney disciplinary Chief Counsel Thomas J. Cahill's predecessor, Hal R. Lieberman, Esq., wrote to Gizella to advise that since her complaint against attorney Edward Fagan had involved an "ongoing criminal proceeding" his office would await the outcome of that proceeding before concluding their disciplinary investigation. Then-Chief Counsel Lieberman also advised Gizella that his New York State ethic's office had requested a written answer to the complaint from attorney Fagan. Edward Fagan then hired his own lawyer.

Letter to Self

Approximately 9 weeks later, in a July 15, 1998 dated formal answer to the charges against him, attorney Fagan's lawyer submitted a 6-page denial of the various charges made by Mrs. Weisshaus. Astonishingly, attorney Fagan's lawyer, who he (Fagan) had recently engaged, was none other than Hal R. Lieberman who, in a 9-week period of time, had left his position as Chief Counsel of the New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division, First Department Disciplinary Committee to join the law firm Beldock Levin & Hoffman, LLP.

So, essentially, on July 15, 1998 private attorney Hal Lieberman was responding to himself-- to his own May 6, 1998 letter wherein he, as the New York state-employed Ethics Chief Counsel had advised Gizella of the request for a written answer from the attorney she had filed a complaint against, and the same person who was to be Lieberman's client-- Edward Fagan.

Mrs. Weisshaus still seeks justice and believes the 'ethics' oversight committees in New York are in need of a complete overhaul.  "I am a survivor, and I am fighting for justice!" she says.

Here's Gizella Weisshaus' letter to New York State Senator John L. Sampson's office, dated May 18, 2009:

RE: My “whitewashed” complaints at the NYC DDC 

***** ....I want to publicly testify !! *******

1. I am a 79-year-old Holocaust survivor, and a citizen of the United States, who has been fighting to recover my father’s stolen assets since shortly after my entire family was exterminated during the Holocaust. I was the person who first filed the historic “Swiss Banks” lawsuit in 1996, against various Swiss banks, for the looting of my family’s assets. My case eventually became a so-called “class action” suit, and that action was settled on behalf of Holocaust survivors for $1.25 billion in 1998. I opted out of the settlement because involved attorneys were paying themselves millions of dollars when, in fact, some Holocaust survivors and class plaintiffs had not received a penny, and while others had only received a few thousand dollars.

2. The people at the Manhattan Grievance Committee individually, and in concert with each other, "whitewashed" my complaints of serious attorney misconduct against attorneys Feder, Urbach and Fagan, and, subsequently, Hal R. Lieberman.

3. I learned that Fagan and Urbach participated in a scheme to perpetrate a fraud upon the court involving a document purporting to be a 1997 “amended complaint” in the Swiss Banks action, but was actually a document backdated and improperly manufactured in or about 2000.

4. In addition, Fagan committed gross attorney misconduct regarding conversion of an escrow account in the amount of $82,583.04 in another matter involving me as a fiduciary in The Estate of Jack Oestreicher. (NY ignored this complaint, but New Jersey did not!)

5. Also, attorney Feder defrauded me when he lied to me and the court in failing to establish an escrow account for $112,500.00 in another matter involving a Sol Mermelstein and others.

6. The DDC "stonewalled" and "whitewashed" each and every complaint I filed with the DDC against Feder and Fagan. This occurred even while the State of New Jersey, where Fagan is also admitted to practice law, in or about January of 2008, concluded that Fagan should be disbarred from the practice of law in New Jersey for reasons including his acts of misconduct in New York against me. I would like to note that when I was interviewed by the New Jersey agency investigator, she furnished copies of the 1998 and 2000 New York State grievances, upon which the New Jersey agency thereupon took appropriate action, unlike their New York State counterparts at the DDC. Mr. Fagan was ultimately disbarred in New York but only after the DDC ignored my complaints about him which were obviously true.

DDC Complaints in 1998

7. In 1998, I filed with the DDC an attorney ethics complaint against Fagan and Feder. In a letter dated May 6, 1998, referencing File No. 1811, then Attorney Disciplinary Committee Chief Counsel, Hal R. Lieberman, Esq., wrote to me to advise that since my complaint against attorney Fagan had involved an "ongoing criminal proceeding," his office would await the outcome of that proceeding before concluding their disciplinary investigation. Then Chief Counsel Lieberman also advised me that his New York State ethic's office, the DDC, had requested a written answer to my complaint from the respondent Fagan. Fagan would then soon hire his own lawyer. (See attached Exhibit "A" - dated May 6, 1998, a one-page letter from NY State Attorney Disciplinary Committee Chief Counsel Hal R. Lieberman to Mrs. Gizella Weisshaus re: Edward D. Fagan.)

8. Approximately nine weeks after I filed my complaint against Fagan, on or about July 15, 1998, a formal answer to the charges against Fagan was submitted to the DDC. That 6-page denial of the various charges made by me was filed by Fagan’s then-newly-retained attorney, Hal R. Lieberman, who, in a nine-week period of time had left his position as Chief Counsel of the DDC to join the law firm of Beldock Levin & Hoffman, LLP. (See attached Exhibit "B" – dated July 15, 1998, a six-page Answer to Complaint from the now private attorney Hal R. Lieberman to Mrs. Gizella Weisshaus re: Edward D. Fagan.)

9. The DDC knew of the gross conflicts of interest:

a. Lieberman, acting as DDC Chief Counsel on May 6, 1998, acknowledges receipt of my grievance against Fagan, and advises me that Fagan had been requested to file a written response.

b. Then, lo and behold, no less than nine weeks later, on July 15, 1998, Lieberman files the response on behalf of Fagan, not as Chief Counsel, but as a private attorney! (See Exhibit “B” above.) Indeed, on July 15, 1998, then-private attorney Lieberman was responding to himself as the former DDC Chief Counsel, to his own May 6, 1998 letter. Lieberman, as the New York state-employed Appellate Division, First Department Ethics Chief Counsel had advised me of the request for a written answer from me and, who as it turned out would be Lieberman, as a private attorney, now representing his new client, Fagan.

10. The complaint against Fagan was, without due process, summarily dismissed.

11. On or about September 1, 2000, an expanded complaint was prepared and filed with the DDC, and given File No. 3324. That complaint was also summarily dismissed.

12. The current Chief Counsel, Mr. Friedberg, continues to ignore his duty when he chooses not to report or take any action against the conflict of interest involving Lieberman as a state-employed Chief Counsel and as a subsequent private attorney—in the very same proceeding before the DDC, which he had received and acknowledged as the current Chief Counsel.

13. I have been denied my right to fair proceedings, and have been improperly and permanently denied my rights, as state employee-Lieberman, who oversaw the intake and initiation of the 1998 grievance against Fagan, would soon become Fagan’s own retained attorney.

14. If not for the improper influence over the affairs of the DDC by certain favored people, I would have been afforded due process and a fair and impartial adjudication of my complaints. The involved members of the DDC, and former members and current attorneys, have purposely and knowingly acted to improperly influence the DDC by their own self-dealing for personal, political and financial gain. To date, and only as a result of sham DDC proceedings and coverups, my DDC complaints have never been resolved or even properly addressed as required by law.

15. The continuing improper actions by the DDC has been most recently advanced by the substantive inaction, dereliction of duty, and failings of the current Chief Counsel Alan W. Friedberg (See attached Exhibit "C" – a one-page certified letter to Friedberg dated June 23, 2008, and a four-page follow-up letter dated June 24, 2008)

16. The DDC is a division of the New York State Supreme Court, Appellate Division, First Judicial Department, and is therefore part of the New York State court system. As part of the New York State court system, the DDC is obligated and duty-bound to administer justice in a fair, honest and lawful manner. They have failed this obligation and in doing so have, and continue to, violate my rights. I have a Constitutional right to a fair, lawful and honest judicial system, free from corruption, oppression, self-dealing and bias, with impartial arbiters of the law. Through the conduct of the DDC, I have been denied access to fair, honest and lawful court proceedings. My children, grand-children and future generations have also been harmed; but I am a survivor, and I am fighting for justice!

17. I have suffered and continue to suffer extreme losses of confidence in the Legal System and Judicial Process, emotional pain and suffering, loss of enjoyment of life, and loss of trust of attorneys who are charged with the duty to uphold ethical standards within the legal system and in the Court system. As a client of Feder, Urbach and Fagan and of all of their related legal entities, they owed me basic fiduciary duties of good faith, loyalty, and care. The DDC should hold all attorneys accountable for any improper actions, regardless of their political connections.

18. I support the clean-up of the ethics committees in the NYS court system and I would like to testify.

Dated: May 18, 2009 - Brooklyn, New York

Respectfully submitted,

GIZELLA WEISSHAUS
203 Wilson Street
Brooklyn, New York 11211
(718) 387-0026

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

This woman, Gizella Weisshaus, renews my faith in the people of this great state of New York, and certain politicians, here, Senator Sampson of Brooklyn. I hope they have hearings in Brooklyn too!

Anonymous said...

God Bless Gizella.

Not only does she fight for a just cause, but she goes after those who corrupt the system.

These committees and commissions who are supposed to protect us, manipulate the rules to protect the crooks.

If it suits them, you can't use ethics to prove criminal acts, and then you can't use criminal acts to prove ethics violations.

Where does it say that it has to be both?
You certainly can be unethical without being criminal.
Don't look to AG Cuomo to help here either. You can hand him evidence of a crime on a silver platter, but if these people with their nonsense, cover it over, he backs them up 100%

Keep up the good work Gizella!

Luisa Castagna Esposito said...

GO GIZELLA!!!! You're my kind of woman..STRONG, COURAGEOUS, BRAVE and a TRUE HERO, in your fight for JUSTICE. You have stood up to the most horrific monsters there are in NYC...GOD BLESS YOU!!!!

Anonymous said...

Excellent Letter.

What a disgrace to humanity these people are.

Devoid of mind, heart, and soul..

The LAW is coming.. First One and then Another....

Finnan said...

The elderly or the sick will fight back. A chance for Judge Lippman to show his resolve is presented in the following letter sent today:
May 19, 2009
Hon. Jonathan Lippman, Chief Judge:

Re: Acting Judge Kevin K. Ryan

Hon. Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman:
Kevin K. Ryan, acting Supreme Court Judge, ran a Kangaroo Court which is subject to a pending action in US Court of Appeals for 2nd District (08-cv5977). Andrew Cuomo claims there are adequate State remedies. Judge Ryan reversed the order of closing arguments and allowed false testimony that I was the worst domestic violence abuser in the North Country since 1974 by a former DA. Judge Ryan refused to allow me to counter that claim or declare a mistrial and refused to allow Police testimony. Judge Ryan knew that was a false claim since there are no Police records against me for Domestic Violence and no required DV violence reports were ever filed.
Unsatisfied, Judge Ryan rushed up a further part of that trial (scheduled on the court calendar at a later date) to the date I was in cardiac intensive care at the hospital (His staff called the Hospital to tell me to check out and come to court, but no messages are relayed to a person in cardiac intensive care). There is much more about Judge Ryan’s misconduct which has been sent to your underlings, Pfau and Plumadore of further misdeeds of Judge Ryan. Judge Caruso who was also named in the above federal action has recused himself from supervising Judge Kevin K. Ryan.
I have severe heart problems and was defribrillated five times in the last year and have an ejection fraction below 30%, along with post stroke care and other extensive medical problems. I do not need abuse by the NY courts. Acting Judges serve at your pleasure. It’s time to remove this Acting Judge and not allow his acts to besmirch you.. If Judge Ryan’s conduct is unacceptable, please act as required by the Canons of Judicial Ethics.

Sincerely yours,

Terence Finnan


CC: Exposecoruptcourts.blogspot.com

Patentgate / Bat Out of Hell said...

Continued
My kids, I teach them that we are under siege that our country is in danger of complacent People who watch and believe the news and their government while at the same time they start to try and make us think torture is ok for this or that bs reason. They try to justify the actions of our leaders with Nazi News from the likes of Mika (Spoiled Rot) Brzezinski, Joe Scarborough and the Goebbels Nazi Network FOX (FIX) News with hatemonger O’Reilly (PERVERT) and that idiot Glenn Beck, where did any of these idiots earn their journalistic wings anyway. Mika’s father Zbigniew “Zbigot” Brzezinski is a warmonger; he backed Obama to power while being Rockafella’s beatch, heading CFR and the Trilateral Commission, an evil fellow indeed.
I am wholly ashamed with Americans, they are being manipulated into wars of aggression and not a protest in the street, are they afraid of the big bad Wolf? Are you afraid, just ask why you are not protesting louder, why you are not demanding accountability from your leaders who usurped democratic voting to slither into power and destroy America, that is what they bank on, your apathy and complacency, the devil’s two best friends. Ask Gizella what happens when you wait, when you buy into government controlling the People and not the opposite, you end up putting your mother in an oven, you end up taking showers in poison, you end up allowing the murder of 32 million people. Take a leaf from Gizella, you are not powerless, your voice is loudest when you protest publically and risk it all to stop government when it has gone mad. It is time to make a plan to take back our country from these monsters taking us to hell. Time to try and fry them, as always, frying pans free @ www.iviewit.tv
Gizella you are my HERO!!!
Eliot Ivan Bernstein
Mad Inventor
Iviewit Technologies, Inc.
www.iviewit.tv
iviewit@iviewit.tv
561-245-8588

Eliot Bernstein said...

Gizella has gone from defeating one Nazi Germany only to see resurgence in our new Nazi America. The courts appear more like Gestapo HQ's than a forum for justice, complete with abuse and theft of personal properties and liberties. After witnessing our country go in the toilet for the last 16 years, mainly due to corrupt lawyers, politicians and courts, I often wonder if it will take the People to witness the horrors of concentration camps to rise up against this nonsense. Oh, excuse me, we already have Gitmoschwitz and Abu, creations of our courts, whereby people have no rights and are tortured.
Who are these injustice people with the morals of Nazi's, they are in fact the grandchildren of Nazi sympathizers but now elitists of all colors join them. The elitist crowd filled with Yuppie's from Ivy League schools that worship Hitler's ideologies and are as cowardly as he was. They act superior to you with no reason, as they have no real identity, other than daddy got them to law school.
These NY courts, all the way on high to the Supreme Nazi's have done away with personal freedoms; they all appear afraid of people on camels or is it just a ploy to fool the People into giving up their rights? Gizella I am sure has seen this before in Germany, the People whipped up into a frenzy by lies and propaganda to hate one another for the benefit of a few, so stirred they lose sight and begin torturing people and murdering them, in mass graves they pile them, all behind closed doors. Think of New Orleans, think of Gitmo, think that we are being brainwashed to accept such treatment of other human beings, no matter what they did, yet when we lower ourselves to do it we become them.
I am so ashamed of our lawyers and judges, they have sold out their profession, and they have used their colored college degrees to destroy the greatest democracy ever, the ones their grandparents succeeded to give them trust fund elitism. The reason is that they are so spoiled they cannot compete in a Democracy, so they must turn on the people and find ways to steal from them and take what is not theirs, misusing law and power. They act like Nazis, rising to power through abuse and crime, afraid to make an honest living, having no skills to compete other than daddy’s teat.

Continued below due to new restrictions by our editor and chief

Eliot Bernstein said...

Are you really behind Gizella? People like her and these related cases sacrifice to bring to the public's attention the gross crimes of our leaders, lawyers, politicians and judges and yet I only hear mousey voices behind them. Where are the People, the People who must rise to the occasion to take back Democracy before it is too late, before it is the children who suffer, like Gizella, who suffered at the hands of Nazi's while complacently the German people looked on? Why not close our eyes, perhaps we can get a benefit too, perhaps we can become one the elitists or Nazis? Perhaps we are afraid, afraid to question our government even when we know it is all wrong, even when the facts prove them wrong and committing crimes right before our eyes.
I beg of you who read this, wake up, your country is now morally bankrupt (also financially bankrupt being fleeced by same ole Nazi worshippers from past), the only way to recover is to make sure the government fears the People, not vice versa. Evil lives in secret, it operates in secret, so bring them to the light for their crimes and try them publically like Nuremberg, this is the only way for our salvation. At this hearing on June 8th 2009, the city of New York should march upon the hearings demanding that their public officials be held accountable, video camera’s, non-mainstream media as mainstream media is just Nazi propaganda and part of the Nazi party, pushing their agenda, so don’t look for their support.
Same for the political Nazi hacks like Bush, Cheney and Rummey, demand that Justice be served and if guilty try them for their war crimes and torture crimes and financial crimes. If our courts protect them, remove those who are sitting on them. Let us start with the Supreme Idiots who stole the election for Bush and removed the vote from the People for their Nazi leader; they have to be tried too. I mean come on, removing habeas, allowing torture, failing to prosecute anything; they are Supreme Kangaroo Court, making our country a worldwide joke. We must demand that these court jesters from top to bottom be removed for their crimes, not just replaced with a new face to subdue your anger for the moment.
Continued Below

Eliot Bernstein said...

Continued
My kids, I teach them that we are under siege that our country is in danger of complacent People who watch and believe the news and their government while at the same time they start to try and make us think torture is ok for this or that bs reason. They try to justify the actions of our leaders with Nazi News from the likes of Mika (Spoiled Rot) Brzezinski, Joe Scarborough and the Goebbels Nazi Network FOX (FIX) News with hatemonger O’Reilly (PERVERT) and that idiot Glenn Beck, where did any of these idiots earn their journalistic wings anyway. Mika’s father Zbigniew “Zbigot” Brzezinski is a warmonger; he backed Obama to power while being Rockafella’s beatch, heading CFR and the Trilateral Commission, an evil fellow indeed.
I am wholly ashamed with Americans, they are being manipulated into wars of aggression and not a protest in the street, are they afraid of the big bad Wolf? Are you afraid, just ask why you are not protesting louder, why you are not demanding accountability from your leaders who usurped democratic voting to slither into power and destroy America, that is what they bank on, your apathy and complacency, the devil’s two best friends. Ask Gizella what happens when you wait, when you buy into government controlling the People and not the opposite, you end up putting your mother in an oven, you end up taking showers in poison, you end up allowing the murder of 32 million people. Take a leaf from Gizella, you are not powerless, your voice is loudest when you protest publically and risk it all to stop government when it has gone mad. It is time to make a plan to take back our country from these monsters taking us to hell. Time to try and fry them, as always, frying pans free @ www.iviewit.tv
Gizella you are my HERO!!!
Eliot Ivan Bernstein
Mad Inventor
Iviewit Technologies, Inc.
www.iviewit.tv
iviewit@iviewit.tv
561-245-8588

eliot said...

Come on Franklin Brady, I was unhappy about the editing of the blog, censorship is part of what we fight I thought but restrictions on comments, etc. is ridiculous, keep the moral high ground.

eliot said...

Come on Franklin Brady, I was unhappy about the editing of the blog, censorship is part of what we fight I thought but restrictions on comments, etc. is ridiculous, keep the moral high ground.

Anonymous said...

OH, BOY. I CAN"T WAIT !!!!!!

EX-LAX said...

I can't wait to spill my guts either..I'm going to have diarrhea of the mouth.

Survivor said...

I know Gizella Weisshaus and know that g*d has blessed her. She has been taken advantage of by various lawyers who were going to protect her. Instead they looted her, just to name Fagen, Korman and Mermelstein all good jews stealing from another jew. What does the Torah say about that. I support Gizella.

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See Video of Senator John L. Sampson's 1st Hearing on Court 'Ethics' Corruption

The first hearing, held in Albany on June 8, 2009 hearing is on two videos:


               Video of 1st Hearing on Court 'Ethics' Corruption
               The June 8, 2009 hearing is on two videos:
         
               CLICK HERE TO SEE Part 1
               CLICK HERE TO SEE Part 2
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