VCJC News & Notes 2/14/25

 

Van Cortlandt Jewish Center

News and Notes

Here's this week's edition of the VCJC News and Notes email. We hope you enjoy it and find it useful!

Reminder

Shabbos

Shabbos information is, as always, available on our website, both in the information sidebar and the events calendar.

Here are the times you need:

Shabbos Candles Friday 2/14/25 @ 5:12 pm

Shabbos morning services at 8:40 am.  Please join the services if you can do so safely.

Shabbos Ends Saturday 2/15/25 @ 6:16 pm

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Van Cortlandt Jewish Center

3880 Sedgwick Ave

Bronx, NY 10463

Einstein Montefiore Hospital Proposed New Life Science Building

 

Former Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. now Senior Vice-President, Strategic Initiatives for Montefiore Einstein Hospital was the guest speaker at the Morris Park Community Association Wednesday night. The former borough president was there to introduce a proposed new Life Sciences building which would allow Montefiore Einstein Hospital to expand, as Diaz Jr. would say the hospital needs more space. He also mentioned that there was a one billion dollar endowment to allow for free tuition for all Einstein medical students. 

With the Metro North Rezoning, Diaz Jr. said there was a once in a lifetime opportunity for the hospital to build the new World Class Life Sciences building. People would no longer need to go to Manhattan because the needed facilities would be on the Einstein Montefiore campus. Diaz Jr. mentioned that the hospital would be seeking patients with private health insurance since the hospital did not get reimbursed as much by public health insurance. He said people would come from all over the nation, as would some of the staff.

After the presentation and timeline where Diaz Jr. mentioned that the hospital would have to go through the land use process to change the zoning from R4 to R6 to allow for a taller building that could take up to ten years to complete, but he wanted to bring it to the community before the community heard it from elsewhere. There would be two levels of parking, then several floors of doctors and equipment with the top half of the building housing the patients. 

How tall would the building be? Diaz Jr. said that the hospital wanted to compete with other hospitals, and that the building would be twenty-six stories high, which let out gasps from many in the audience. Then Diaz Jr. mentioned the floors would be higher than regular residential floors because of the complex bigger equipment that would be used, instead of a regular ten foot floor height, the average floor height would be much higher, finally saying the building would be four-hundred and fifty-four (454) feet high which would be twenty six feet higher than the current tallest building in the Bronx at River Park Towers. 

When told of a Montefiore building proposed for Riverdale at eleven stories that was reduced to six stories and eventually scrapped after much community opposition. Diaz Jr. said, yes, we could cut down the height, but then we would have to give lesser quality care by cutting back on some items. He mentioned the hospital owns three homes on an adjacent block which when fact checked turns out to be five homes,  and others in the surrounding community. Diaz Jr. said that he would be going around to the different community organizations to give this presentation much like the people from Bally's have done with their proposal of a casino in Ferry Point Park, where over seventeen acres of parkland would have to be alienated to build a casino and hotel. 

Former Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. was hired by Montefiore Hospital to find ways to expand the Einstein campus with what is now proposed to be the tallest building in the Bronx at 454 feet high.

The area where the new proposed building would sit compared to the rest of the Einstein campus, with a view of what the building would look like from street level on the lower left.

                            

Head of Commercial Real Estate Investment Firm Pleads Guilty in $62.8M Investment Fraud Scheme

 

A New York man pleaded guilty in the Northern District of Georgia for his role in a scheme to defraud investors in connection with two commercial real estate investments.

According to court documents, Elchonon “Elie” Schwartz, 46, of New York City, engaged in a scheme to defraud investors who sought to invest in commercial real estate through the crowdfunding commercial real estate investing website CrowdStreet Marketplace (CrowdStreet). Beginning May 2022, Schwartz solicited investments through CrowdStreet for a large commercial real estate complex in Atlanta and ultimately raised approximately $54 million from about 654 investors. Beginning in November 2022, Schwartz solicited investments again through CrowdStreet in connection with a mixed-use building in Miami Beach, Florida, and ultimately raised approximately $8.8 million from about 167 investors. In total, Schwartz raised approximately $62.8 million from investors through CrowdStreet.

As part of the investment solicitation process, Schwartz executed agreements that stated, in part, that the funds raised from CrowdStreet investors would be held in segregated bank accounts controlled by Schwartz. In the documentation provided to CrowdStreet investors, Schwartz represented that he would only use the investors’ money to fund the investment in each property and that he had a fiduciary duty to safeguard the funds and to prohibit commingling or use of the money that did not benefit each investment.

Contrary to these representations, however, Schwartz misappropriated and converted the CrowdStreet investor funds for his own use. Schwartz directed substantially all the CrowdStreet investor money into his personal bank, personal brokerage account, and accounts for unrelated commercial real estate investments he controlled. For example, Schwartz used the CrowdStreet investor funds to purchase luxury watches, to invest in stocks and options in his brokerage account, and to pay for payroll expenses for his unrelated commercial real estate businesses. Ultimately, in mid-July 2023, the two corporate entities that Schwartz had formed to receive funds from CrowdStreet investors both filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Schwartz pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud. He is scheduled to be sentenced on May 19 and faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison. A sentencing hearing will be scheduled at a later date. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

Supervisory Official Antoinette T. Bacon of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, Acting U.S. Attorney Richard S. Moultrie Jr. for the Northern District of Georgia, and Acting Special Agent in Charge Sean Burke of the FBI Atlanta Field Office made the announcement.

The FBI Atlanta Field Office investigated the case. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s Division of Enforcement provided valuable assistance in the investigation.

SUNNYSIDE COUPLE SENTENCED TO 14 YEARS IN PRISON FOR ATTEMPTED MURDER OF NEIGHBOR AFTER FIGHT OVER PARKING SPOT

 

Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz announced that married couple Arturo Cuevas and Daisy Barrera have been sentenced to 14 years in prison after pleading guilty to attempted murder for the stabbing and baseball bat attack of their neighbor, a 28-year-old man, in March 2023. The assault stemmed from a previous dispute between the couple and the victim over a parking spot in the neighborhood.

District Attorney Katz said: “This was a near deadly attack over a parking spot. The defendants became irate to the point that they senselessly stabbed and beat a man with a metal baseball bat. The vicious assault – caught on video by another neighbor – shocked the city. Just before the start of the couple’s trial, the defendants pleaded guilty to attempted murder.”

Cuevas, 32, and Barrera, 28, of 48th Street in Sunnyside, pleaded guilty to attempted murder in the second degree before Queens Supreme Court Justice Mary L. Bejarano on January 7, 2025. Today, Justice Bejarano sentenced the pair to 14 years in prison.

DA Katz said that according to the charges, on March 17, 2023, at approximately 3:40 p.m., defendants Cuevas and Barrera, were present when victim Wilson Chabla Lliguicota, 28, arrived at his residence and parked his car. The defendants, who are married, lived around the block from the victim and had a dispute with him over a parking space 11 months earlier.

Both defendants — armed with weapons — approached the victim and attacked him. Cuevas stabbed Lliguicota in the body multiple times with a folding knife. Barrera, armed with a metal bat, struck the victim in the head repeatedly. After the victim was knocked to the ground, the pair continued the onslaught with Cuevas stomping on the man and Barrera hitting him in the head again with the bat.

The victim’s girlfriend, 22-year-old Delia Chimbay, saw her partner in distress from their apartment window and came outside to intervene. Barrera struck the woman in the arm with the bat and resumed her attack on Lliguicota as Cuevas continued to hit the victim.

The altercation ended only when police showed up and Cuevas and Barrera retreated to their apartment but were arrested following a 20-minute standoff.

Both victims required medical treatment for their injuries. Lliguicota required surgery for severe brain trauma, removal of part of his skull and the inducement of a medical coma to manage his extended care and rehabilitation needs.

Lliguicota previously worked as a truck driver for a major retailer. He is unable to operate heavy machinery due to the injuries he suffered and is not able to return to work.