Sunday, September 30, 2007

Case of Edward Nisimov

Case of Edward Nisimov
(AKA: Ed Nisimov, Roman Abramovich)
Akko, Israel


Nisimov was accused of approaching several women registered on the site, while using several different identities to con them out of money. On one occasion he allegedly pretended to be billionaire businessman Roman Abramovich. 

Some of the women reportedly refused to pay Nisimov for his help, at which point he threatened them and their children and even held one of the women at knife point.

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Table of Contents
  1. Man indicted for defrauding JDate members (09/30/2007)
  2. Conman takes women for over $100,000 (09/30/2007)

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Man indicted for defrauding JDate members
by Vered Luvitch
YNET.com - September 30, 2007


Tel Aviv District Court indicts Edward Nisimov on multiple counts of fraud, false representation, extortion and aggravated assault; said he was Roman Abramovich

Edward Nisimov, 25, from Akko, was indicted Sunday on multiple counts of fraud, false representation, extortion and aggravated assault, against women he met on the popular dating website JDate.

He was accused of approaching several women registered on the site, while using several different identities to con them out of money. On one occasion he allegedly pretended to be billionaire businessman Roman Abramovich.

Nisimov was further accused of promising at least four of the women he contacted – all single mothers – that he would help them in acquiring an apartment, a car and additional social security benefits, in exchange for some of the money. He was able to con them into giving him over $100,000.

Some of the women reportedly refused to pay Nisimov for his help, at which point he threatened them and their children and even held one of the women at knife point.

The Tel Aviv district prosecutor's office told Ynet that Nisimov pled guilty to all counts of the indictment, saying his addiction to gambling drove him to it. He was arraigned by the Tel Aviv District Court.
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Conman takes women for over $100,000
By Vered Luvitch
YNET - September 30, 2007 

This past weekend, Edward Nisimov, 25 from Akko, was charged with fraud after he conned four women he met through internet into giving him over $100,000.

Nisimov stands accused of promising the women help in acquiring an apartment, a car, and more while using fake identities. In one of the instances, he claimed to be billionaire Roman Abramovich. Nisimov is also being charged with threatening the women and their children.



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Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Vicki Polin Shares her story at Cardozo School of Law

Speaking in this film clip is Vicki Polin and Matt Contay



Vicki Polin is the founder/CEO of The Awareness Center, which is the international Jewish Coalition Against Sexual Abuse/Assault. She is a Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor and also a survivor of incest.


Matt Contay is the founder and director of Child Victims Voice. He is a survivor of clergy sexual abuse by a Catholic priest in Delaware.

When You’re An Incest Survivor

When You’re An Incest Survivor
© (2007) By Vicki Polin, MA, NCC, LCPC, ATR-BC 
 
The following was originally presented at a News Media Event:
Calling for State and National Laws Lifting Statute of Limitations of Survivor Lawsuits 
Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law - Yeshiva University
 September 25, 2007

Estimates of the number of incest survivors vary. These discrepancies can be attributed to the fact that incest remains an extremely under-reported crime. According to statistics on the National Center for Victims of Crime web page, 46 percent (46%) of children who are sexually violated are victimized by a family member. 

To explain why the windows legislation is so important I would like to share my story with you. My story is not that much different than many other incest survivors. 

To the outside world I grew up in a typical upper middle class, loving, suburban family. A family in which both of my parents were seen as honorable and respected. My father worked long hours and my mother was very active volunteering time at the local PTA and in Girl Scouts. 

My parents always wanted the best for their children. There was always enough food on our table, we lived in a safe home and neighborhood, we were well clothed and went on many wonderful family vacations. We were a family that did things together. When we were sick either my mother or father would hold us in our arms -- and if need be stay up with us all night long with us. 

Unfortunately, there was another side to my childhood -- one in which was supposed to be kept secret. I was taught from a very early age that it was important to be "loyal to the family". Meaning what went on at home was supposed to be kept secret. 

No one would have ever guessed that my mother was being battered or that my father had an explosive temper. Like many other children who grow up in an abusive environment, my siblings and I believed it was much better for us to use our tiny little bodies as shields to protect our mother from being hurt. 

There was another secret that I kept for many years. I was being sexually abused at home. I don't know how old I was when the sexual abuse began. When I was young I just thought that was one of the many ways a parent would expressed love to a child. The abuse was done with tender loving care. As I got older I started feeling funny about what was happening. By the time I was in high school I began to refuse to be touched sexually. Unfortunately, doing so made the physical abuse get worse. I didn't know what to do to make the emotional, physical and sexual abuse stop. 

During my high school years my guidance counselor was aware that something was wrong at home. He was aware that I was overwhelmed and often wrote passes for me so I could just hang out in his office instead of going to classes. I didn’t have the vocabulary to tell him what was going on. I would just say "my father was being mean again". Eventually I trusted him enough to show him the bruises on my arms. At one point he brought me to the school nurse who told me “my bruises wouldn't photograph well enough, and there was nothing they could do." 

When I was sixteen I attempted suicide for the first time. I remember my school counselor asking me if I was being sexually abused at home. My response to him was no. I figured what good would it do to say yes. He wasn’t able to help me with the physical abuse. I was also too embarrassed to say yes. 

Both the physical and sexual abuse ended when I was in my early twenties. Unfortunately, on many levels the emotional abuse continues to this day. 

Over the years as I’ve been on my own personal healing journey I’ve thought about filling a civil suit against my parents, yet I could never bring myself to doing that. My parents were not always mean or cruel. They were often very loving and kind. I always wanted to believe that they loved me, that they really cared about me. I often made excuses for them that they just didn't know any better. 

When I was twenty I confronted my mother for the first time about both the physical and sexual abuse. Her reaction was to tell my father what I said. At first both of my parents disclosed to me that they were also sexually abused as children. The strange thing is that they both denied being abusive towards me. Because I refused to recant my story, I was basically cut out of the family. There were a few brief respite of my exile, yet from that point on I basically no longer had parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, or siblings. I was no longer invited to family functions. I was not allowed to watch my nieces or nephews grow up. I was no longer seen as part of my family. I became nobody's child. 

Through the years I felt both anger and sadness for what happened to me. I yearned to be part of my family. I would often ask myself, how does one sue their parents? How does one emotionally put themselves into a place to do such a thing? 

The first time I disclosed to an adult that I was being physically abused was when I was in sixth grade. The first time I disclosed to an adult that I was being sexually abused was when I was twenty. 

Last year at the age of 47 I reconnected with one of my relatives who I hadn’t seen in about twenty-five years. It was after that interaction I began to seriously considered filing a civil suit against my parents. What had stopped me in the past was that I had fantasied that a miracle would happen and there would be some sort of reconciliation. If I filed a civil suit all bets would be off for my fantasy to become reality. 

During one of the conversations I had with my relative, she disclosed that she was ordered not to communicate with me until the statute of limitations of filing a civil suit had expired. Once that date passed, she had no idea of how to find me. 

After the conversation I had with my relative I couldn’t stop crying. It finally hit me how much I’ve lost. I finally found the courage to seek out an attorney to file a civil suit against my offenders. The problem was that in the eye’s of the law it has taken me too long to come to this point. 

I am not alone. Many adult survivors of child sexual abuse are also facing the same stumbling block as I did. Without the “Window legislation” that would either change or abolish the statute of limitations filing a civil suit, my offenders and the offenders of other survivors can never be held accountable for their actions. 

Vicki Polin is the founder and executive director of The Awareness Center. Vicki is a Nationally Certifide Counselor (NCC), Licensed Clinical Professional Couselor (LCPC) in the state of Illinois and is a Board Certified Art Therapist. She has an undergraduate degree in Women's Studies from Roosevelt University, and a Masters Degree from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Vicki also attended Neve Yerushalayim School of General Jewish Studies, Jerusalem, Israel and The Etz Chaim Center For Jewish Learning, Baltimore, MD.
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Here are a few things incest survivors want you to remember when it comes to legislation abolishing both civil and criminal statutes of limitations and the “Windows legislation”.

  1. When you are an incest survivor you don't have parents who are first and foremost concerned with your safely.
  2. You don't have your parents to fight to protect your rights.
  3. When you are an incest survivor at times you have to deny your own reality in order to survive.
  4. When you are an incest survivor at times suicide seems like the only way out.
  5. When you are an incest survivor you walk around with a burden of tremendous confusion, guilt and rage.
  6. When you are an incest survivor at times it feels like there is no one you can go to for help or if you tell anyone, they won’t believe you or do anything about it.
  7. When you are an incest survivor you can heal but you always carry scars.
  8. When you are an incest survivor you don't have parents who will support you through the arduous path of suing perpetrators who are often still scary to you and in a legal system that can be insensitive to the toll such suit can have on you.
  9. When you are an incest survivor, choosing to sue often means giving up the only thread of hope for the family you never had. It is one of the hardest things to do, and one that often takes years to be able to do. Perpetrators often rely on that loss to guard their interests and protect their secrets.

Thursday, September 20, 2007

Call To Action for State and National Laws Lifting the Statute of Limitations on Sexual Abuse Victims’ Lawsuits—At NYC Press Conference, Sept 25th at 11:00 AM

Call To Action for State and National Laws Lifting the Statute of Limitations on Sexual Abuse Victims’ Lawsuits—At NYC Press Conference, Sept 25th at 11:00 AM
Join Cardozo Prof. Marci Hamilton, legal advisor to victims of sexual abuse in several noteworthy cases around the country; State Representative Margaret Markey of Queens, NY; State Senator Karen Peterson of Delawareand Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse

At a 
CALL TO ACTION 
September 25, 2007 at 11am
FOR STATE & NATIONAL LAWS
LIFTING The STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS ON Sexual Abuse VICTIMs’ LAWSUITS


Assemblywoman Markey has introduced legislation in New York that has passed in the Assembly, but has stalled repeatedly in the Senate.
Senator Peterson spearheaded newly adopted legislation in Delaware .
• Both legislators will discuss their efforts and the importance of the legislation.
NY survivors will speak about the need for similar legislation in New York .
Survivor Matt Conaty of Delaware will tell why he worked hard to get legislation passed in his state.
Vicki Polin, Founder of The Awareness Center will address why legislation is needed for the millions of Americans who are victims of incest.
Professor Hamilton will talk about the growing national grassroots movement for legislation and her recent book that details the need for such legislation and identifies its rather surprising opponents.

Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law/Yeshiva University
Jacob Burns Moot Court Room
55 Fifth Avenue @ 12th Street
New York , New York


For additional information or to attend, you must
rsvp to lawpr@yu.edu or call 212-790-0237.

Friday, September 14, 2007

Charedi guide to addiction

By Simon Rocker
The Jewish Chronicle - September 14, 2007

A ground-breaking guide has been published in the UK to help combat drug, sex and other addictions among strictly Orthodox Jews.
 
Believed to be the first of its kind anywhere in the world, the 130-page book, "Understanding Addictions" is trilingual, written in English, Yiddish and Hebrew.
 
Ranging from eating disorders, gambling and "shopaholism", to internet porn and gambling, it has been produced by Talking Matters (TMA), a National Health-funded counselling agency set up in 2001 to promote stress prevention among the Charedi community.
 
Its purpose is to equip rabbis, teachers, parents and youth and community workers with the knowledge to identify problems and provide help in a "constructive and non-judgmental way". Its contents include an illustrated guide to illicit drugs as well as an extensive list of Orthodox counsellors.
 
In the introduction, TMA's founder and national director, José Martin, says that in the past people with such problems would be "shipped out" to other towns. "We pray that no child comes to harm in his life, but if s/he stumbles, it is our duty to help them up, not push them further into the quagmire."
 
She told the JC that one motivation for compiling the book was learning a few years ago that an official Drug Action Team (DAT) in Manchester had a record of 10 Orthodox Jews. "By the time, they get to the DATs you'd never know they were Orthodox or even Jewish, it's too late. Two or three died," she said.
 
A report on mental health in the Charedi community that she helped compile earlier this year for the University of Central Lancashire Centre for Ethnicity and Health also found anecdotal evidence of drug-taking among strictly Orthodox youth. It recorded: "What has been quite shocking, even for the researchers, is the frankness with which some respondents said that`There are teenage girls and boys using drugs like marijuana, cocaine and speed.' This is alarming as it was always thought that the girls in particular, of Stamford Hill, were totally immune from such terrible things."
 
Feedback from therapists also sheds light on what problems need to be addressed. "Life has changed," Ms Martin said. "We didn't have internet pornography 10 years ago."
 
The publication is endorsed by a highly-respected strictly Orthodox rabbi, Dr Abraham Twersky, a psychiatrist with expertise in substance abuse and author of numerous religious books.
 
"We must get our heads out of the sand and realise that all social problems that exist in society at large may exist among Orthodox Jews as well," he writes in the foreword, "and even if there may be a lesser incidence, the prevalence is significant. Families are being ruined and children suffer the consequences of parental addiction."
 
Other rabbinical backing comes from Rabbi Dr Chanan Tomlin in Manchester, the chairman of Talking Matters, and Rabbi Azriel Schechter in Stamford Hill.
 
Ms Martin said that 300 copies had so far been sent out — mostly attracting positive reaction — "although there were three negative responses, including one who sent it back".
 

Thursday, September 13, 2007

INCEST - A Family Tragedy

INCEST - A Family Tragedy
documentary by Edward Blackoff
Shazzamfilms - September 13, 2007

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Slavery In The Suburbs

CBS News - Sept. 12, 2007

(CBS) Most people think slavery ended in America back in the 19th century. But thousands of people are sold in this country each year. Some are made to work for no pay. Others are forced into prostitution.
The government has funded 42 task forces across the country to root out human trafficking operations.
It's an industry that's worth some $32 billion worldwide. And as CBS News correspondent Tracy Smith reports in a series for The Early Show, it's making its way into America's suburbs.
 
At 17, Shauna Newell didn't see it coming.
 
"She was the new girl at school looking for friends," says Shauna.
 
A new girl in town invited Shauna for a sleepover in her Pensacola, Fla., neighborhood. A man posing as the girl's father slipped Shauna a drug. She woke up to a nightmare.
 
"My legs were being held," she says. "And my head ... my hands were tied like this, above my head. And I remember saying, 'No, please don't do this. Stop.'"
 
While her parents frantically searched for her, Shauna was drugged, raped and beaten. Investigator Brad Dennis suspected Shauna was a victim of human trafficking, a growing problem in the Florida Panhandle.
 
"They know how to target these young, vulnerable teenage girls," he said.
 
According to Dennis, the girls are moved around a circuit and sold for sex.
 
He says, "They're hitting all the major hotel industries and convention centers."
 
"The business of trafficking is an extremely lucrative business," according to Wan Kim of the U.S. Justice Department.
 
The U.S. government says human trafficking is one of the largest criminal industries in the world - second only to drugs - and the fastest growing.
 
"Human beings you sell and resell and resell and you're always making a profit," says Anna Rodriguez of the Florida Coalition Against Human Trafficking.
 
The State Department says nearly 20,000 people are trafficked into the U.S. each year. Countless women are promised jobs, but then are sold for anywhere from $10,000 to $300,000 and forced into labor or prostitution.
 
One Haitian woman came here to be someone's nanny - but ended up a sex slave. She tells Smith she was tortured.
 
"These people are under extreme control, even death threats. This is one of the most horrific crimes that I have seen," says Rodriguez.
 
The problem has moved beyond immigrant trafficking. The Justice Deptartment says increasingly young American boys and girls, like Shauna, are attractive targets.
 
"We find it in residential neighborhoods where usually young girls are being held - sometimes for periods of years upon years, in subjugation. They never leave the house. People don't even know they live there," says Kim.
 
In Shauna's case, investigators pursued a group of suspected traffickers in the Panhandle area. She was released after four days, but her captors remain at large.
 
To find out more about Shauna's story and human trafficking in America, turn to The Early Show for the special series "Against Their Will."