Friday, September 25, 2020

Early Voting Bronx Sites and Dates From the Board of Elections

 

Listed below are the dates and times for Early Voting, and the 16 poll sites in the Bronx, for the November 3, 2020 General Election


 Early Voting Days and Hours 

 Saturday, October 24, 2020 

 10 AM to 4 PM 

 Sunday, October 25, 2020 

 10 AM to 4 PM 

 Monday, October 26, 2020 

 7 AM to 3 PM 

 Tuesday, October 27, 2020 

 12 PM to 8 PM  

 Wednesday, October 28, 2020 

 12 PM to 8 PM 

 Thursday, October 29, 2020 

 10 AM to 6 PM  

 Friday, October 30, 2020 

 7 AM to 3 PM  

 Saturday, October 31, 2020 

 10 AM to 4 PM 

 Sunday, November 1, 2020 

 10 AM to 4 PM 



Bronx Early Voting Poll Sites 

  

  Andrew Freedman Home 

 1125 Grand Concourse 10452 

 Bronx County Supreme Court House 

 851 Grand Concourse 10451 

 JHS 45 Thomas C. Giordano 

 2502 Lorillard Place 10458 

 Claremont Neighborhood Centers 

 489 East 169th Street 10456 

 Bronx Regional High School 

 1010 Rev James A Polite Avenue 10459 

 Bronx River Community Center 

 1619 East 174th Street 10472 

 Columbus High School 

 925 Astor Avenue 10469 

 InTech Academy -MS/HS 368 

 2975 Tibbett Avenue 

10463 

 St. Frances de Chantal Church 

 190 Hollywood Avenue 10465 

 Truman High School 

 750 Baychester Avenue 10475 

 Saint Anthony Church 

 4505 Richardson Avenue 10470 

 Butler United Methodist Church 

 3920 Paulding Avenue 10466 

 Justice Sonia Sotomayor Community Center 

 1000 Rosedale Avenue 10472 

 Stevenson High School 

 1980 Lafayette Avenue 10473 

 Monroe College 

 2501 Jerome Avenue 10468 

 Tremont United Methodist Church 

 1951 Washington Avenue 10457 

Court Rules Census Cannot Be Stopped Early

 

 New York Attorney General Letitia James today announced that — late last night — the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California issued a preliminary injunction stating that the Trump Administration cannot stop collecting census information early. Data collection efforts for the 2020 Decennial Census must continue through October 31, as originally planned. Earlier this month, Attorney General James led a large coalition of attorneys general, cities, and counties from around the nation, as well as the U.S. Conference of Mayors, in supporting legal action to prevent implementation of the Trump Administration's “Rush Plan,” which aimed to reduce the time in which self-response questionnaires would be accepted and door-to-door follow-ups would take place in this year’s census.

“Once again, the Trump Administration’s unlawful attempts to undermine the census and manipulate the population count to the president’s liking have been stopped,” said Attorney General James. “We have repeatedly taken the president to court over his attempts to politicize the census, and we will continue to do so whenever he tries to put politics above the Constitution. We will do everything in our power to stop the president’s shameful actions and ensure that everyone is counted, that our states have proper representation, and that our communities receive funding based off an accurate count.”

Attorney General James led the coalition in filing an amicus brief in National Urban League v. Ross, supporting the plaintiffs’ request for a nationwide preliminary injunction. The coalition argued, in the brief, that the expedited schedule would have hamstrung the U.S. Census Bureau’s ongoing efforts to conduct the census and would thus impair the accuracy of its enumeration of the total population of each state.

Last night’s preliminary injunction continues the directives of a temporary restraining order, issued earlier this month, that instructed the Census Bureau to immediately halt the termination of employees working on census operations in an effort to stop any further harm to the count.

The filing of this amicus brief is the latest in a long list of actions Attorney General James has taken to protect the integrity of the 2020 Decennial Census. In 2018, the Office of the Attorney General filed a lawsuit against the Trump Administration in response to its efforts to add a citizenship question to the census. That suit made its way through multiple courts, eventually landing in the U.S. Supreme Court last year, where the court ruled, last June, in favor of New York by prohibiting the Trump Administration from adding the citizenship question to the census. In August of last year, Attorney General James moved to intervene in a separate census case in Alabama where the federal government were defendants, in an effort to ensure the case is properly presented and that every resident in America — irrespective of citizenship status — is counted in the decennial census. Additionally, this past July, Attorney General James led the filing of another lawsuit against the Trump Administration after it announced new efforts to exclude undocumented immigrants from the apportionment base following the census count, in violation of the U.S. Constitution. Earlier this month, the courts ruled in Attorney General James’ favor and issued a motion for a partial summary judgment, stopping the president from continuing his efforts to illegally leave millions of undocumented immigrants out of the apportionment base that establishes the number of members in the House of Representatives in each state.

Joining Attorney General James in filing this amicus brief were the attorneys general of California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin, and the District of Columbia. The attorneys general were joined by the cities of Central Falls, RI; Columbus, OH; Philadelphia, PA; and Pittsburgh, PA. Additionally, Cameron, El Paso, and Hidalgo Counties in Texas; Howard County in Maryland; and the bipartisan U.S. Conference of Mayors joined the amicus brief as well.

Attorney General James Sues to Stop Precious Metals Scheme That Defrauded Seniors Out of Millions

 

New York Attorney General Letitia James today announced that she, along with 29 additional states and the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), have filed a lawsuit against Metals.com and a host of other entities and individuals for defrauding seniors across New York and the rest of the nation by soliciting more than $185 million and by charging exorbitant fees for overpriced precious metals. The lawsuit specifically names as defendants TMTE Inc. (also known as Metals.com, Chase Metals Inc., and Chase Metals LLC), Barrick Capital Inc., and Tower Equity LLC, along with the individuals Simon Batashvili and Lucas Asher.

“These investors may have been sold on the comfort of investing in precious metals, but the defendants tarnished their dreams,” said Attorney General James. “This fraudulent scheme capitalized on investors’ fears of economic uncertainty, causing hundreds of seniors nationwide to lose substantial amounts of their retirement savings by relying on bald-faced lies. Our bipartisan coalition filed this lawsuit because we won’t allow fraudulent companies to target seniors or other vulnerable investors and profit off of lies and other misrepresentations.”

The lawsuit — filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas — charges the Beverly Hills, California-based firm and its sales representatives with targeting elderly investors through traditional and social media and defrauding them into transferring funds from their traditional individual retirement accounts (IRA) into self-directed IRAs by misrepresenting that metals purchased from the defendants were a safe and conservative investment. In reality, however, the defendants charged undisclosed and excessive fees on precious metals sold to investors that resulted in instant and substantial losses, with many investors losing the majority of their investment funds immediately upon consummating the transaction. Often, the market value of the precious metals sold to investors was substantially lower than the value of the securities and other retirement savings investors had liquidated to fund their purchase of precious metals. The complaint charges the defendants with violating the Commodity Exchange Act and various state securities laws.

The lawsuit asks the court to enjoin the defendants from engaging in any additional commodity-related activity, to order the defendants to return money to defrauded investors, and to stop the defendants from violating both federal and state laws. The petition also requests that a receiver be appointed to take over the companies in order to marshal funds for the benefit of investors across the country.

Today’s coordinated state and federal action was a result of a multi-state collaboration by members of the North American Securities Administrators Association (NASAA) — of which the Office of the New York Attorney General is a member — and the CFTC’s Office of Cooperative Enforcement.

The Office of the New York Attorney General encourages any investors who suspect they have been targeted by similar precious metals investment schemes to come forward by contacting the office’s Investor Protection Bureau by emailing Metals.Complaints@ag.ny.gov.

Joining Attorney General James and the CFTC in filing today’s lawsuit are securities regulators and the attorneys general from various states, including Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, West Virginia, and Wisconsin.

Comptroller Stringer Demands Gowanus Power Plant Be Replaced With Sustainable Alternatives, Not More Fossil Fuel Infrastructure

 

Current proposal to redevelop the plant would lock in decades of future emissions, all while forcing ratepayers to ultimately pay for power plant that pollutes their own air

Urges the State to instead accelerate a transition to a clean energy future by facilitating the deployment of solar generation, battery storage, demand management, and energy efficiency measures

Stringer: “Rather than reinforcing the fossil fuel status quo, it is now past time to overhaul our energy infrastructure and permanently retire all polluting ‘peaker plants’ in New York City and replace them with renewable and battery powered solutions that generate both reliable power and good jobs.”

 New York City Comptroller Scott M. Stringer called on the New York State Board on Electric Generation Siting and the Environment to reject the Astoria Generating Company’s Gowanus Repowering Project Proposal.  In his letter, Comptroller Stringer argued that the proposal would put our climate goals further out of reach and perpetuate local air pollution that puts neighboring communities at risk. Rather than continuing to allow peaker plants to run off of fossil fuels and pollute our neighborhoods and climate, the Comptroller argued we must be seeking every opportunity to leverage new technology that would allow for the closure of peaker plants across the city with the aim of enhancing environmental justice.

Astoria Generating Company’s redevelopment plans would redevelop its existing peaker plant, located on barges floating on Gowanus Bay, with larger turbines powered by fracked natural gas. Comptroller Stringer urged the State to evaluate the project against sustainable alternatives that would rely on renewable power generation and large utility-scale batteries to ensure reliability of the grid. Comptroller Stringer questioned how the project is compatible with the State and City’s ambitious climate goals and how the City can achieve a transition to a green energy future if it continues to allow the installation of new fossil fuel infrastructure. Citing several energy efficiency programs that New York is already pursuing, Comptroller Stringer recommended doubling down on a clean energy strategy to generate green, well-paid jobs that will help jumpstart New York’s economic recovery and should be prioritized over the replacement of the Gowanus plant.

Comptroller Stringer also raised concerns that the proposal jeopardizes the health and safety of the surrounding community made up of working-class people of color who have already been disproportionately impacted by COVID-19. Even absent a global pandemic, exposure to fine air pollution claims the lives of more than 3,000 New Yorkers every year.

Comptroller Stringer supports a moratorium on all major fossil fuel infrastructure and recently expressed his opposition against plans for a gas powered peaker plant in Astoria.

To read the full letter from Comptroller Stringer to Secretary Michelle L. Phillips, see below or click here.

Head Of Investment Management Firm Sentenced To 85 Months In Prison In Connection With $18 Million Pre-IPO Securities Fraud Scheme

 

 Audrey Strauss, the Acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced today that FRED ELM, a/k/a “Frederic Elmaleh,” the founder and manager of Elm Tree Investment Advisors LLC (“ETIA”), was sentenced today to 85 months in prison for participating in a scheme to defraud investors in multiple investment funds created and controlled by ELM and Ahmad Naqvi, ETIA’s chief operating officer.  Among other illicit activity, ELM and Naqvi fraudulently induced more than 50 investors to invest over $18 million based on false representations that investor money would be invested, through the funds, in the shares of well-known privately held technology companies before their initial public offerings (“IPOs”).  Instead, the majority of investor funds was misappropriated for personal use, lost through poor trading, or used to repay investors in a Ponzi-like fashion.  ELM pled guilty to conspiracy to commit securities fraud and securities fraud on May 15, 2020, before U.S. District Judge Edgardo Ramos, who also imposed today’s sentence.  Naqvi pled guilty before Judge Ramos on May 4, 2020, and was sentenced on June 29, 2020. 

Acting U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss said:  “Fred Elm told investors the Elm Tree Funds would generate huge profits from investments in privately held technology companies.  In fact, the Elm Tree Funds never invested in these pre-IPO companies and never returned a profit.  Further, Elm lied to investors to conceal that their money was being comingled, misused, and lost.  Now Elm is headed to prison for his crimes.”

According to the Superseding Indictment charging ELM and Naqvi, and other filings in the case:

From at least June 2013 through December 2014, ELM and Naqvi engaged in a scheme to defraud investors in funds that ELM and Naqvi created and controlled at ETIA, where ELM was the founder and manager, and Naqvi was the chief operating officer.  ELM and Naqvi raised more than $18 million from over 50 investors in four limited partnerships for which ETIA acted as the fund manager:  Elm Tree Investment Fund, LP; Elm Tree Emerging Growth Fund, LP; Elm Tree ‘e’Conomy Fund, LP; and Elm Tree Motion Opportunity, LP (collectively the “Elm Tree Funds”). 

ELM and Naqvi falsely represented that the Elm Tree Funds used investor capital to purchase shares in privately held technology companies before their IPOs.  These companies included Twitter, Alibaba, Uber, Square, Pinterest, and GoDaddy.  Moreover, ELM and Naqvi falsely represented that they had access to these pre-IPO shares because of their relationships with leading venture capital firms, such as Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Benchmark Capital, and Silver Lake.  In truth and in fact, ELM and Naqvi did not invest in the pre-IPO shares of these companies and did not have relationships with these venture capital firms.

ELM and Naqvi comingled the approximately $18 million that was invested in the Elm Tree Funds in a single investment account and then invested only a portion of the money, approximately $7.1 million.  At no point did any of the Elm Tree Funds return a profit.  Instead, for example, between January 2014 and November 2014, the Elm Tree Funds lost approximately $3.9 million in poor trading.

Moreover, of the investor funds that ELM and Naqvi did not lose in securities trading, ELM routinely converted investor funds to his own use in the form of cash withdrawals and to pay personal expenses, including to purchase a multimillion-dollar home, high-end furnishings, and other personal items, such as jewelry, daily living expenses, and luxury automobiles, including a Bentley, a Maserati, and a Range Rover.

The conversion of investors’ funds was contrary to the representations that ELM and Naqvi made to investors concerning their and ETIA’s fees.  ELM and Naqvi falsely represented that they and ETIA would take a two percent annual management fee plus a performance fee of 20 percent of any profits that the Elm Tree Funds earned.  In truth and in fact, ELM converted investor money that far exceeded the two percent management fee.  Moreover, because the Elm Tree Funds never returned a profit, ELM, Naqvi, and ETIA were not entitled to any profit-based performance fees.

ELM and Naqvi also used approximately $5.2 million of new investor funds to make payments to earlier investors in a Ponzi-like fashion.  To prevent or forestall redemptions, and continue to raise money to fund their scheme, ELM and Naqvi also generated fictitious account statements and made oral and written misrepresentations that their trading strategies were generating consistently positive returns. 

ELM was initially arrested in April 2016 and released on bail.  In June 2017, approximately one week before his then-scheduled guilty plea, ELM fled to Canada.  ELM was subsequently arrested in Canada and extradited to the United States in January 2020.  Naqvi, who had been a fugitive since his indictment in 2016, was arrested in Canada and extradited to the United States in November 2019. 

ELM, 51, was also sentenced to three years of supervised release, ordered to forfeit $8,318,840.07, and to pay restitution in the amount of $12,426,293.11.

Ms. Strauss praised the work of Homeland Security Investigations and the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of International Affairs of the Department’s Criminal Division, and thanked the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for its assistance.  Ms. Strauss also thanked Canadian law enforcement for its support and assistance.