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New
York Law Firm Accused of Malpractice, Breach of Trust
By
Jonathan Ariel
Tel Aviv --- May 5, 2012 ... An Israeli-American citizen has accused a New York law firm of malpractice - withholding payment of life saving heart medicine, allowing an eviction to take place and willfully, maliciously abusing and defrauding a Trust Fund that a New York law firm had authored for him in accordance with the instructions of his late father Bernard Leyden. The New York law firm describes itself as "a full service international law firm, headquartered in New York, focusing on products liability, tort and commercial litigation as well as transactional work." “My father, Bernard Leyden, before he died, retained a New York law firm to write up and create a Trust for my children and myself. The purpose of the Trust, as written by the New York law firm, was to provide for the "well-being and protection of me and my family, and to be there in the event of any emergencies". “Instead of acting to ensure my well-being and protection as the Trust stipulates, in accordance to the wishes of my late father, they have chosen to fight me, and are depleting my Trust to fund the brutal and unnecessary legal battles they are waging against me and my children in the New York Courts”. “So far the New York law firm has taken over $80,000 in legal fees from my Trust to fund litigation they are waging on behalf of my brother Brian Leyden, to prevent me from gaining access to the funds in my Trust”. “As a result I have found myself evicted from my home in Israel which has been completely destroyed, separated from my young children and work opportunities in Israel. In addition they are preventing the fund from paying for physician prescribed heart medicine, without which I am in danger of having a lethal heart attack”. “Instead of acting to promote and protect my well-being by counseling my brother, who acts as Trustee, to find healthy solutions and compromises, they march off to Court where they know they can find blank checks from my Trust to support their lavish meals and vacations. Rather than acting in good faith and trying to reach a negotiated settlement, they chose to bully, intimidate and coerce, acting in ways one could expect from Tony Soprano, not Law and Order”. “My late father would be turning in his grave if he knew that over $80,000 of his hard earned money had been abused and misused in this way by the New York law firm. I am certain that the attorney for whom he had trusted and worked with for many years is not involved in this malpractice”. Joel Leyden who is an Israeli war hero, an officer (res.) in the Israel Defense Forces who today serves as a senior adviser to the government. Leyden states
that the New York law firm is blaming his brother for the decisions
that they make. But underscores that this holds no water as they
could have resigned from representing his brother and his Trust.
He states that if the New York law firm chose to negotiate out
of court or had resigned, they would not be in a position today
to take over $80,000 in legal fees from his Trust to act against
him. Joel states that for his brother to attempt to control his life at the age of 60 is perverse. For his brother to attempt to separate him from his children and gather the support of a Jewish law firm is something that defies all Jewish and humanitarian values. Most concerning is that this Jewish owned law firm in New York has ignored several requests to pay for heart medicine from Joel's Trust and at the time of this writing Joel's blood is now clotting. In addition to allegedly withholding heart medicine from Joel, the New York law firm has placed Joel under life threatening stress, stress for which three cardiologists in both Israel and New York have warned in writing could kill Joel given his heart disease.
Joel's advocate in New York is Michael Lippman. Lippman is a highly respected, honest Estates and Trusts attorney who is working almost pro-bono for the suffering heart patient. Lippman states that he has never witnessed a case where a client of his was denied heart medicine. "Joel, is extremely well regarded in Israel," says Rabbi David Marcus of Jerusalem. "He lives by Rabbi Hillel's verse 'If I am only for myself, what am I?' Joel has made many sacrifices for Israel and the Jewish nation. Both by placing his life on the front line in the IDF and making financial sacrifices to live with his family in Israel. His brother and the New York law firm have no knowledge of Israel and or Israeli culture. But it may be that these cross cultural communications are transcended by greed and malice as it appears that the New York law firm have no problem taking 80,000 dollars away from Joel and his young children. Furthermore, when Joel attempted to make public all that the New York law firm has done with his money, the New York law firm then threatened his attorney with sanctions. If this is not malpractice, then what is?" “Not since Cain killed Abel have we seen a brother so deliberately and calculatingly act in order to bring about his brother’s untimely demise as my brother Brian Leyden is doing to me. Unlike Cain, who had to do his dirty work by himself, my brother has the full collaboration of a Jewish owned New York law firm,” says Joel. “I have
no doubt that had this New York law firm been around when Genesis
was written, they would have charged Abel’s heirs for the
costs of defending Cain on the murder charges against him”. UPDATE: May 7, 2012 - Attorneys from the New York law firm (not one but now two attorneys depleting funds from the Trust) described Joel's requests for heart medicine, avoidance of an eviction (which has already transpired with the destruction of his home) as "frivolous" in their attempt to keep these requests from the Judge in the Bronx Supreme Court. The court decided that Joel was suffering from several emergencies for which the Trust is responsible for addressing and has accepted the case.
Jonathan Ariel is an award winning journalist. Former Editor-in-Chief at Maariv International, Managing Editor at Makor Rishon, Bureau Chief of SABC who also has served as a strategic and communications consultant, COS Designate Chris Hani, former ANC Deputy President, Senior Adviser to former Israeli Minister Ami Ayalon, Special Consultant COPE, Senior Adviser IPU and former consultant to the SA government.
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