El mat all my friends are unemployed or fully under utilized for the educations they received - from my high school buds, to my IBM buds, to my older buds down to the 20 somethings. The only friends I have that have bright outlook for the future are the nursing/medical ones or government employed - all the rest not so positive. I have a friend in the US air force that has great financial outlooks but he really tires of his job - he was thinking of going to prague - told me they were thinking of legalizing prostitution there. I have another friend work for american standard - he married girl from germany and bring her back to the states, but she hate it here, too hot in the south and no nice shopping and street cafe's like she had back home. She tell him I can be broke and bored back in Germany - hehe. They divorce, he married a phillipine girl - she get a nursing job and he OK now. I talk to a few of these european girls on the net and they telling me it not so good there jobwise - like you say - they get these degrees and can't do much. I had a cuban tell me last week he very glad his daughter marry a german and not a mexican, haitian.
I read this in the paper today - does the legal system in iran, germany, sweden, brazil or anywhere else you have been support this kind of drama against a man who had a 2 week live in girlfriend?? American courts are rigged against men I feel.
The case of Betsy Howard vs. Morton Friedman - Who's the real victim?
Monday, August 01, 2005
For the better part of six decades, Ta-boo has been a popular Palm Beach restaurant where locals and the famous have dropped in. Everybody from Frank Sinatra, John F. Kennedy, Bob Hope, Rush Limbaugh and Rod Stewart.
The Worth Avenue landmark also is the spot where Morton Friedman's life changed. It was there, late in 2001, that Friedman, now 78, met a woman who called herself Betsy Howard.
What spiraled out of that chance meeting is a court judgment that he owed Howard $1.95 million, the tossing out of that judgment, a lawsuit that's generated legal fees in the six figures, fraudulent documents, the appointment of guardians to protect him and a malpractice suit against his first lawyer.
Friedman may know nothing about all this. He is diagnosed with bipolar disorder and his mind is ravaged by dementia.
In a region where exploitation of the elderly is as pervasive as palm trees and humidity, Morton Friedman's story stands out for its sheer audacity.
"This is a very unfortunate situation, because we're dealing with an incapacitated elderly man who never had a chance," said John Farina, an attorney his guardians hired.
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Friedman lived comfortably in a 1,300 square-foot, second-floor condo in South Palm Beach just steps from the ocean. He owned a second, one-bedroom unit on the ninth floor of the same building, The Barclay. A native of Scranton, Pa., Friedman managed a gasoline business and then went into life insurance in New Jersey, retiring in 1987 and moving to Palm Beach County. His wife of 48 years, Rosalie, died in 1996.
"He was a nice guy to everybody," said Robert Erwood, the weekend doorman. "Everybody liked him."
He met Howard at Ta-boo's bar, 7 1/2 miles north of his home. Howard, who turns 57 in August, told him she was buying a condo but couldn't move in just yet and had no place to stay in the meantime. Friedman offered his upstairs unit.
"I felt sorry for her and it was Christmastime," Friedman said in a deposition in May 2003. "I didn't charge her anything. It was like a Christmas gift."
There was a caveat. Howard had to be out in a few weeks because one of Friedman's two daughters was planning to visit.
Howard left on Dec. 27 to visit a son and granddaughter in Atlanta, moving her possessions into a walk-in closet so Friedman's daughter could use the condo freely, she said.
When she returned Jan. 9, the lock had been changed, Howard said. Nearly three weeks later, she returned with two police officers. Entering the condo, she found that Friedman had tossed out all her belongings.
"He had thrown things that I can not replace with any amount of money: my family Bibles, pictures of my parents," Howard said under oath two years ago.
Howard told police she placed only "clothing, essential work stuff and basic amenities and decorative items" in the condo. She said her laptop computer also was missing.
Friedman acknowledged throwing out clothing and pots and pans because, he said, he believed Howard had moved and wasn't returning. A doorman retrieved her laptop computer and it was returned to her.
But four days later — Feb. 6, 2002 — Howard provided South Palm Beach police with an 11-page handwritten list of property she said was missing. It contained hundreds of items. Some were small: four cheese balls, six pair of eyelashes, four wooden spoons and a mouse pad. And there were larger belongings: crock pots, frying pans, two large suitcases and dozens of pieces of clothing.
And, for the first time, Howard claimed that jewelry valued at $4,600 was among the missing possessions. She said it was hidden in the Chanel, Ferragamo, Donna Karan and Ralph Lauren suits, blouses and other designer clothing that Friedman threw out.
Six days later, Howard submitted a new list claiming the missing jewelry was worth $27,705, and her total loss was $108,000.
The jewelry "is just a fabrication," contends Farina, the attorney for Friedman's guardians. "Never insured it. Has no evidence of having owned it."
Howard wrote to State Attorney Barry Krischer, urging him to punish Friedman "both criminally and financially." She offered a motive: He was spiteful because she was not interested in a romance. "Now I would not spit on him if he were on fire!" she wrote.
Howard said that "she wants us to take Mr. Friedman out of his condominium in shackles at high noon," Sgt. Daniel LaDuke wrote in a report.
Police turned over the results of their investigation to the state attorney's office, which declined to prosecute.
On April 30, 2002, Howard came to the attention of prosecutors again, but for a different reason. She was arrested at an Albertson's grocery store in West Palm Beach for pilfering four bottles of spices and a magazine with a retail value of $26.36.
A police report says Howard admitted the theft and offered to pay double for the items. The self-proclaimed former debutante and condo buyer who read Bon Apetit, Southern Living, Architectural Digest and Fortune told the investigating officer she lived in her car. The '83 Chrysler was parked illegally outside the store.
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Howard also was arrested for shoplifting by Fort Lauderdale police in the mid-1990s. And in June last year, Boynton Beach police arrested her for leaving a Home Depot without paying for a $148 air-conditioning unit. She pleaded guilty to retail theft and agreed to serve 35 hours of community service during the following five months. Apparently she did not, because a judge issued a warrant for her arrest in April.
Around the time Howard was swiping the air conditioner, her landlord for an $800-a month Palm Beach apartment three blocks from Ta-boo evicted her three months after she moved in, claiming she owed him one month's rent. Howard said she owed nothing. She also was evicted at least three times while living in Broward County in the 1990s.
Howard eventually retained attorney William H. Pruitt. In December 2002, he sent Friedman a letter demanding that he reimburse Howard for her losses. The amount had risen again, to $326,575.
Pruitt refused to discuss the case. "You can print whatever you want," he said.
When Friedman didn't pay, Howard and Pruitt sued him for civil theft and conversion in March 2003. Friedman hired attorney Jennifer Labbe.
Labbe and Friedman soon had a falling out. Judge Diana Lewis granted her request to withdraw as Friedman's lawyer and gave Friedman 30 days to retain another. He didn't.
When Howard's lawsuit went to trial on March 1, 2004, Friedman was a no-show. Lewis placed a call to his home and got his answering machine. She then proceeded without him, hearing testimony from witnesses, including Howard. Nine days later, Lewis ruled that Friedman had disposed of items belonging to Howard valued at $650,000, a sixfold increase over the estimate she gave police two years earlier. She ordered him to pay triple that amount — $1.95 million — as permitted in civil theft complaints.
Was Morton Friedman so arrogant that he opted to thumb his nose at Howard, the judge and the court system? Or was there another explanation?
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Six months after the court judgment, one of his daughters, Laurie Friedman of Santa Fe, N.M., came to South Palm Beach to visit. She said her father was unaware of the nearly $2 million judgment, and she found unopened mail and unplayed phone messages.
Once her father learned of his legal and financial bind, he became depressed, didn't want to get out of bed or eat and believed that he was going to jail or that all his money would be taken away, she said. Laurie Friedman hired Farina.
As Farina delved into the case, he learned that Howard told police that her name was Elizabeth Howard. South Palm Beach police officer Mark McKirchy said a background check done when Howard made her complaint against Friedman showed she has used at least 17 aliases and eight or more Social Security numbers and birth dates. Her true name: Octavia Elizabeth Ann Howard.
McKirchy said later that he met with Howard more than 20 times between January and April 2002, and she never mentioned any missing jewelry.
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There were other discrepancies. One of the things Lewis cited in awarding Howard nearly $2 million was the appraisals Howard submitted showing the value of her missing jewelry.
The appraisals were dated Sept. 7, 2001. That was five months before Howard gave police lists of her missing property. Yet the first list didn't mention jewelry. Subsequent lists showed different values for jewelry than those of the appraisals. The most glaring discrepancy involved a "South Sea" or "Burmese" pearl necklace.
On a list she gave police, Howard said the necklace was worth $20,000. But the appraisal gave a value of $225,000. At a deposition, Howard said it was $200,000.
Farina learned the appraisals were fraudulent. Each was signed by a "Shan Elaki" of an Atlanta company called Diamond Export. After his name was the acronym, GAI, rather than GIA, which is the Gemological Institute of America. That wasn't the only thing the forger botched.
Shan Elaki was supposed to be Shan Elahi — the forger misspelled his name. Farina flew to London to take Elahi's deposition. He is an importer-exporter who used to live in Atlanta and considered forming a company called Diamond Export, but never did.
How did Howard know this? Elahi, 42, said he met her while he was pumping gas in the Palm Beach area in February or March 2002. That was shortly after she complained to police about Friedman. Howard began chatting with him and mentioned that her son lived in Atlanta. Elahi handed her his business card. The conversation lasted no more than four minutes. Elahi, a Pakistan native who left Atlanta in 2003 and moved abroad, never saw Howard again.
But she called him seven or eight times in the next six months, he said. She wanted to know whether he knew anybody who was qualified to appraise her jewelry — and would do so without looking at it.
"Once I told her that 'you have to bring the jewelry and get it done yourself,' then she stopped calling me," Elahi said in the deposition.
He added that his signature on the "Elaki" appraisals bearing his former Atlanta address and phone number are forgeries.
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After visiting her father last year and seeing his mental state, Laurie Friedman acted quickly to get her sister in Minnesota and herself appointed as his emergency temporary guardians.
A panel of three mental health professionals evaluated Friedman and concluded he wasn't competent to manage his assets, travel, sign contracts or do other tasks. A judge appointed the sisters the guardians of his property.
The panel's evaluations echoed that of Mary Jo Thomas, a West Palm Beach psychiatrist who began treating Friedman for his bipolar disorder in October 2003. In a letter last year, Thomas said that his mental disorder "is severe and causes profound impairment of his judgment." Even though she started seeing Friedman almost two years after he met Howard, the psychiatrist said that when he allowed Howard to use his condo, he was in a "manic state and incompetent to make such a binding agreement."
Farina argued that his client's mental disorder and his dementia negated the "criminal intent" necessary to win a claim for civil theft. So did the fact that Howard said the purported jewelry was hidden in her clothing, unknown to Friedman. Therefore, he said, the $1.95 million judgment should be set aside. Judge Lewis did so in March of this year.
But Howard's lawsuit is alive and set for a new trial in December despite Friedman's mental state, the phony appraisals and the absence of proof that she owned any missing jewelry or was closing on a condo when she met Friedman.
"This case is a scam," Farina told the judge at a hearing Friday.
Lewis didn't want to hear the merits of the case, and she expressed her irritation with Farina, at one point accusing him of snickering at her. She also complained that he was attempting to retry the entire case, and she limited the scope of his fact finding.
Farina also is suing Friedman's first attorney, Jennifer Labbe, for malpractice. He says she neglected to offer numerous viable defenses, and she should have known her client was too mentally impaired to act in his own interest.
Labbe's lawyer has responded by saying she acted properly, Friedman was present at the hearing at which she withdrew as his lawyer and had adequate time to hire a new one.
Farina has taken aim at Pruitt, too, filing a motion to make him, as well as Howard, pay his fees and costs because of her "intentional falsehoods," which he says should be apparent to Pruitt by now.
As for Friedman, he now lives in an assisted-care facility near his daughter, Laurie, in Santa Fe. He had a stroke last Thanksgiving and is frail. And Howard? Pruitt says he doesn't know where she's living nowadays.
Meanwhile, at Ta-boo, the bar remains romantically lighted with electric candles and the veal milanaise is as popular as ever.
Things are getting bad out here - I see stuff of much less severity as this but in similar light happen to many of my friends - they feel so powerless in biased legal system they fleeing to other countries. |
