Who Steals a DVR? Mr. Joel Stern Does
A look at the second lawsuit involving South Blooming Grove's de facto Mayor, Joel M. Stern and his buddy, Isaac Ekstein.
A short programming note:
The Village of South Blooming Grove wrote me on Monday evening and sent a link to the full Clovewood Environmental Impact Statement.
To the surprise of nobody, the document is massive.
Despite this, I hope you’ll take some time to look it over.
Why?
Next week, on Wednesday, April 3rd, there will be two virtual public hearings held by the DEC concerning Clovewood.
If you can’t attend those hearings I have a letter here you can email to the DEC.
All you gotta do is copy and paste the letter, and send it on in for the public comment. All the directions on how to do so is here, and it’ll take you less than two minutes to let the DEC know your stance on this project.
Wrapping Up The First Lawsuit
Yesterday, I shared with you Exhibit 9, which was the sworn affidavit submitted by Mrs. Tiffany Rodrigo. Today we’re going to look at the other three exhibits featuring testimonies of Rapid Care employees. Then, we’ll dive into the multimillion dollar lawsuit that was filed in Westchester against South Blooming Grove’s Confidential Assistant to the Mayor, Joel M. Stern, and Legislative Aid, Isaac Ekstein.
(I know there are other stories going on in Monroe, Chester, Goshen, and Woodbury. Please hang with me. I’m trying to cover as much as I can about South Blooming Grove before the DEC hearings so the public has as much information as possible to work with.)
First up is Exhibit 3, an affidavit from Mrs. Ashley Terrone, a manager at the Rapid Care facility located at 815 Route 208 in Monroe. She states that on February 28th, 2023, she became aware that Mr. Isaac Ekstein and Mr. Joel Stern informed her employees that they will no longer report to her.
At 4pm on March 1st, 2023, when Mrs. Terrone arrived for her shift, Mr. Ekstein was waiting outside of the facility. She asked him about this change in management, and Mr. Ekstein told her there was “nothing to talk about.”
After Mrs. Terrone entered the building, Mr. Ekstein called the State Troopers. I have foiled the Troopers for the call and any additional information on this.
The troopers interviewed Mrs. Terrone, some of the employees present, and Mr. Ekstein. Then they left, saying they didn’t want to get involved with a civil matter.
That wasn’t good enough for Mr. Ekstein.
After the troopers left, he then called the Town of Blooming Grove Police.
At this point, Mr. Joel M. Stern arrived at the same time the police did.
The local police, like the troopers, said they didn’t want to get involved.
During her shift that evening, Mrs. Terrone noticed that the time clock machine had been physically removed from the wall. It had been there earlier during her shift.
She went on to state that Mr. Ekstein and Mr. Stern have underwent a campaign of harassment against the employees. As Mrs. Terrone describes:
This includes constantly entering the facility; asking employees to leave both verbally and by written notice; making threats to have employees arrested for trespassing; attempting to bait employees into exiting the facility so that they [ Stern and Ekstein] could enter the facility and lock the employees out; taking pictures of employee license plates; circling the building in their vehicles while the facility is open for business; unplugging security cameras; throwing food on the floor inside the facility: stealing specimens that are to be sent to laboratories; and disrupting patient care. [Emphasis Added]
You might be wondering about the part where Ashley said, “attempting to bait employees into exiting the facility so that they could enter the facility and lock employees out.”
That brings us to Exhibit 5.
Hold The Door!
Exhibit 5 is a sworn affidavit submitted by Mario Rricku, an employee of the urgent care facility.
According to Mr. Rricku, on Sunday, March 12th, 2023, before business hours at the urgent care facility, Mr. Joel M. Stern entered the building.
Mr. Stern, who I want to remind you, is an employee of the Village of South Blooming Grove, then proceeded to lock himself inside the facility by drilling the front door shut.
The Town of Blooming Grove police arrived and told Mr. Stern to knock it off, instead of arresting him, and then left. Mr. Stern left after the police did.
On Thursday, March 16th, according to Mr. Rricku, Mr. Joel Stern returned and demanded to enter the building. Mr. Rricku refused to let him in, and it actually says this, “I advised him that I could not let him enter because he could not be trusted.”
Did Mr. Stern, a presumably functional adult, listen to Mr. Rricku?
Nope.
Instead, Mr. Stern returns with an electric saw and sawed the lock off the door. Mr. Rricku, a real American hero, put all of his body weight against the door and kept Stern from entering the building.
Whether or not he shouted, “hold the door!” as he did is not yet known.
Stern told Rricku he would be back “with force.”
Mr. Rricku told Mr. Stern the police were on the way, and then Stern again left.
And again, I gotta ask here, at what point does the Town of Blooming Grove police decide to arrest this guy?
Like, do we have to tie Stern to the murder of the former Lake Anne Country Club owner first?
I’m joking. I am not saying Mr. Stern murdered anyone or had anyone killed.
It’s just a weird coincidence in this overall story involving Clovewood, that Marvin Greene was murdered, and then his family sold the land to Keen Equities LLC.
Please don’t tell any true crime podcasters about this dumb joke.
The actual story is weird enough. For instance …
Who Steals a DVR in 2023?
Exhibit 7 is a sworn affidavit from Mr. Patrick Walsh.
On March 15th, 2023, he was guarding the facility. (Remember that Mr. Libermann had hired private security because of Stern and Ekstein’s behavior after the 1st of March in 2023.)
Around 7:45am that day, Mr. Walsh observed someone try to enter the building.
You’ll never guess who it was.
It was Mr. Joel Stern. Stern identified himself as the owner of the building (which, is sort of true and sort of not), and Mr. Walsh stepped aside to let him in.
Bad idea.
Mr. Stern proceeds to remove the DVR from the office, all while complaining — according to Mr. Walsh — “they had no right to do this!”
Hey Mr. Stern, for what it’s worth, we all feel that way about Clovewood and all those DEC violations.
After Mr. Stern absconded with the DVR, probably because he doesn’t want to pay for yet another streaming service, Mr. Walsh called the police.
Officer Sean Silverman of the Blooming Grove Police arrives and speaks to Walsh. I have reached out to Officer Silverman for comment.
About a half hour later, two unidentified men arrive.
The men have with them a ladder, a work bag, and some tools. Probably to find and remove any other DVRs from the office. (Hey, if Joel Stern can steal a DVR, why can’t they?)
One of the men claims to be the owner of the building, which is weird, because Stern said the same thing earlier.
Also, technically speaking, Mr. Libermann would own the building, and he’s the one who hired private security to protect it from Mr. Stern and Mr. Ekstein.
Mr. Walsh tells the men they can’t enter until the police arrive, and the two people leave.
And that, my friends, brings us to the Westchester lawsuit …
Meanwhile, In Westchester …
A day after Christmas in 2023, Mr. Stern and Mr. Ekstein receive a summons from the law offices of Bleakley Platt & Schmidt LLP.
They are being sued by Forme’ Medical Group and Mrs. Gina Cappelli, the owner of Forme’.
There are two parts of this lawsuit. The first is a little complicated, but it goes like this:
On November 4th, 2022 — Not long after stealing money from Mr. Libermann — Mr. Stern and Mr. Ekstein make a downpayment of $500,00 to Mrs. Cappelli to purchase Forme’ Medical for a total of $10 million.
The thing you need to know here is that the $500,000 doesn’t go directly to Mrs. Cappelli, it goes into escrow.
So she can’t access that money until certain deadlines and goals are met in the deal with Stern and Ekstein.
As you might have guessed, those goals and deadlines are never met. In fact, everything I detailed above is going on at the same time that Stern and Ekstein are claiming to Mrs. Cappelli that they are going to buy her business.
And, correctly, Mrs. Cappelli soon realizes that Stern and Ekstein don’t have the money they claim to have after several delays over the course of 2023 in completing the deal.
So, she sues them for not completing the sale — which is her right according to the contract — and to get the $500,000 she’s owed on top of that.
Again, that’s the super basic version.
Now, did Mr. Stern and Mr. Ekstein have that $10M
It’s possible they did, but that they wanted to use someone else’s money to make the purchase of Forme’ Medical Center.
For example: 601 Lehigh Avenue in Union, New Jersey, is the alleged address of Windsor Global. Mr. Joel Stern is identified as the Chief Operating Officer at Windsor.
I can confirm this LinkedIn profile belongs to Mr. Joel Stern because, in Google’s cache, the profile had previously posted about the United Jewish Community of South Blooming Grove. A non-profit I recently reported to the IRS for not providing me with their Form 990s from the last three years. A thing all non-profits are legally required to do when asked.
It’s not clear, yet, who actually owned 601 Lehigh.
What we do know is that it was shut down by Union township officials in April of 2021.
The company that was identified as owning the building at the time was Enterprise Realty Associates.
A year or so after it was shut down, Easton Coach Company moved into 601 Lehigh. Bay Street Capital would then acquire 601 Lehigh for $27M in May of 2022. Months before the proposed deal with Mrs. Cappelli.
So, it’s possible that Bay Street Capital purchased the building from parties associated with Mr. Stern and Mr. Ekstein, and they did have the money, but didn’t want to part with it for whatever reason.
More investigation is required into this. But I can’t, for now, tell you that this is what happened. I don’t know yet. Maybe an enterprising attorney or law enforcement official reading this can look into it and let us know.
What I can tell you is that Mr. Stern and Mr. Ekstein’s bad behavior exceeded just pretending to buy Forme’ Medical Center. It also includes trying to get the $500,000 by making false claims, and …
“A Campaign To Alienate Both Doctors”
In July of 2023, the Department of Health in New York grants conditional approval of the sale of Forme’ Medical Center to Stern and Ekstein. They still have to make the full payment of $10M — later lowered to $7M — to complete the deal and take full ownership of the business. Something they never do.
But.
During this time, Stern and Ekstein begin speaking to Dr. Gary T. Midelton, Chief Medical Officer at Forme’, and Dr. Claudia A. Useda, a gynecologist.
Mr. Stern and Mr. Ekstein inform both doctors that they will be forced to relocate to Monroe.
Although I *think* the Monroe referenced here is actually South Blooming Grove.
That’s because the Monroe zip code of 10950 is often used in South Blooming Grove and the Town of Blooming Grove.
Either way, neither doctor want to make that move from Westchester.
Can you blame them? We don’t even have reliable train service.
Both doctors are also told they would also be forced to work out of, as the lawsuit describes, “far less comfortable mobile offices" and have no say in the operations of the business.
Understandably, both doctors announce that they would be leaving Forme’ Medical in January of 2024, costing the business $1.5M in revenue that both doctors generated.
And that is where things stand now in Westchester. Mr. Stern and Mr. Ekstein have until this Friday, March 29th, to respond to the complaint.
I’ll keep you posted as the case develops.
Although I think it’s a safe bet this isn’t the end of the lawsuits and legal battles Mr. Stern and Mr. Ekstein find themselves in.
Remember, Orange County has a case against South Blooming Grove that is — very slowly — winding its way through court as well.
This involves the illegal clear cutting of land owned by Orange County to create a road that Mr. Stern never received the permits for from the Department of Transportation.
As Richard Golden, the attorney for Orange County told me: “The county is still pursuing the matter. It's intent is to go ahead and prevail with the lawsuit and then have the village pay for the reforestation of the area that was cut down and a roadway.”