Let’s face it.  You don’t forget  whether or not you are a college graduate.  Just like you don’t forget whether you got married.  It’s one of the  memorable moments in one’s life. There’s usually some sort of celebration. And there’s usually a certificate that comes with graduation, which most normal people cherish and keep in a safe place.

So Yvette needs to stop it. She certainly knew that she was not a graduate. And if she indeed has the credits to graduate and forgot to complete the process for graduation, then she certainly has known it at all along.  If Yvette  Clarke  deliberately lied about being a graduate from  Oberlin College or has deliberately deceived the public in some way, in this writer’s opinion cannot be trusted to represent her community in Congress. Voters need  to have the plain truth, without any finesse so they can make their decision.

The same applies to Carl Andrews who keeps insisting that he is being accused of GUILT BY ASSOCIATION.  It was not Clarence Norman who got 46 receiverships in the Surrogate Court. That was Carl.  And there are many other issues that Carl has avoided explaining, and has not been compelled to explain.

And the truth is that in Carl’s case his actions may be far more reprehensible than those of Yvette Clarke.   Carl has not come clean on several matters.  We do not know whether Carl  plundered the estates of  Brooklyn’s poor,  needy and unempowered in the Surrogate Court.  So far Carl  has not made full disclosure of the 46 Court receiverships that he was given within a few years. He has not explained how he managed to get them, and the disposition of the estates involved. His only defense has been that a Black man deserves to get some stuff too.

But if  the matter was about a Black man getting piece of the action, there are many, many qualified Black lawyers who would have been more appropriate. And  46 receiverships to one person?

Here’s an excerpt from FIDUCIARY REPORT IN NEW YORK STATE BY THE INSPECTOR GENERAL

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In at least one county, a disproportionate number of the appointments and a disproportionate percentage of the fees went to a group of individuals with connections to the local political party establishment. For example:

An official of the local political party organization received 46 receivership appointments during a five-year period (about 10% of all the receivership appointments), and about one-third of all receiver fees during that period.

A law firm, one of whose two members was a high-ranking local political party official, received 34 appointments during the same five-year period.

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The first bullet is Carl Andrews. The second is the law firm of Garry & Ludwig.

Attempts have been made to get information about the 46 estates that Carl handled, the names of the attorneys who handled the estates, the names of the management companies Carl retained, and the final disposition of the estates. The Surrogate Court has indicated that it does not maintain this information in an organized manner. We find it deplorable and incredible that in this age of computerization we cannot put in the name of Carl Andrews and find out immediately all about his receiverships. And we wonder whether in the interest of the public the Surrogate Court cannot make available an expedited report. But Carl can certainly produce those records.  This is a matter of  estates which should have been inherited by individuals and families who were badly in need of the resources. And the voters need to know whether Carl and his appointees were guilty of exploitation.

Let me digress for a moment. As I write this, a matter involving former Judge John Phillips is being heard in State Supreme Court before Judge Pesce.  John Phillips who owned almost half a block of houses on Herkimer street, two or three buildings on Nostrand Avenue, and a theatre on Fulton Street was declared incompetent to handle his affairs in 2000, shortly after he declared that he would run against DA Joe Hynes. John Phillips holdings would probably be worth as much as $50,000,000 today. Apparently much or most disappeared  at unpublished auctions at much less than fair-market value.  And that is the type of thing that may have been happening under Judge Feinberg.

Until we see the records it is easy to suspect that Carl may have plundered these estates with the cooperation of lawyers and management companies he hired to work with him. We know that Carl formed an auction company ACE BID just to handle Surrogate Court estates. And we need to know whether there were unpublished auctions and if these estates were disposed of at fair market price. Like Yvette, Carl needs to produce some documents.

I was walking in front of 80 Livingston Street(near the old Board of Education) a few days ago and saw a large poster of Carl Andrews on an office door. The office was that of a company named BPC  Management owned by someone named Doug Rosenberg.  BPC was involved some years ago in a large housing project in Bedford Stuyvesant. The tenants claimed that BPC was a slumlord raking in huge profits from the buildings, and they filed a suit which to my recollection ended up in removal of BPC.  BPC is also currently the defendant in a law suit which claims that they “stole”  the publicly-owned Cypress Hills Cemetery, a 12 million dollar property and arranged to turn this property over to a private company over which they have control through ex-employees.  And I am wondering whether this is the same organization which had some sort of partnership with ex Boss Meade Esposito?

Sources have now indicated that it was Carl who recommended BPC as a prospective management company to handle Cypress Hills cemetery. In fact we would like to know whether  Carl appointed BPC to handle most if not all of the receivership properties which needed a management company. It also appears that Carl may have hired the law firm of Garry and Ludwig as the lawyers handling all or most of his properties.  And this may be a reason why DA Joe Hynes has never investigated Carl.  One of the Garry boys managed Joe’s Election challenge of Sandra Roper in 2001.

There is no direct allegation in the  Fiduciary Report of the Inspector General that there  are kick-backs from lawyers and property managers to the receiver who appoints them. However, it would be natural to expect that if lawyers and property managers are making huge sums of money through these appointments, they would find a way to show a little LOVE(A  James Davis expression) to the Receiver.  Which leads us to speculate as to whether the 5% fee received by Carl as the Receiver might have been just a minor part of the “LOVE’’  he received.

Here’s the excerpt from the report:

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…“The apparent explanation for the great incidence of receivers hiring counsel is a financial one. Our investigation revealed that the nature of the work performed by counsel to the receiver appears to be routine, typically involving review of documents, preparation of accountings and meeting with tenants and property managers.18 Receivers, however, are compensated at the statutory rate of five percent of receipts and disbursements, whereas counsel for the receiver are compensated at their hourly rate for legal services. Thus, in the average Brooklyn foreclosure receivership case, in which the receipts and disbursements tend to be relatively small, compensation for the counsel is usually more lucrative than for the receiver. Even in cases in which little rent is collected, the counsel to the receiver could still earn over five times the amount earned by the receiver by billing for work that was the receiver's responsibility.

Indeed, in 85% of the cases in which counsel was retained, the counsel's fees exceeded those of the receiver. In 25 of the cases, counsel earned at least twice as much as the receiver, and in one case the counsel actually earned 75 times as much as the receiver. Property managers also typically earned more than the receivers. In 85% of the cases in which property managers were retained, their fees were higher than the receivers' fees. In 17 cases, the property manager earned at least twice as much as the receiver, and in one case the property manager earned 40 times as much as the receiver.

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We would challenge both these Medgar Evers students Yvette to make full disclosure of all their documents and papers in these matters within the next week few days. Yvette and Carl were once good pals. Maybe they could do a joint disclosure. And if they decline  we should accept that as a sign of guilt. Shouldn’t we?