Sunday 30 October 2011

BROOKLYN MAN ADMITS TO ORGAN TRAFFICKING, LEADS TO FIRST CONVICTION IN U.S. HISTORY


Remember this case? The organ stealing rabbi from Brooklyn? If you don't, check out the links at the bottom of this post.  It is most interesting and good to see Rosenbaum, the organ thieving rabbi thug get a bit of a comeuppance. I look forward to his final verdict.  AND he did not even flee to Israel to hide out. Will miracles never cease?

By Michael Billera
October 28, 2011

An Israeli man who lives in Brooklyn pleaded guilty on Thursday to charges of brokering a kidney transplant as of a black market organ business.  This is the first human organ trafficking conviction in the United States.

Levy Izhak Rosenbaum, 60, confessed to three counts of acquiring human organs for transportation and one count of conspiracy in Trenton, N.J.  Rosenbaum also admitted that three ailing people paid him a total of $410,000 to arrange illegal kidney transplants.  He was caught in an undercover sting operation by the FBI when an agent paid him $10,000.

Lawyers for Rosebaum, who lives in the Borough Park section of Brooklyn, tried to paint him as an individual trying to help his fellow man in need.

"The transplant surgeries occurred in prestigious American hospitals and were performed by experienced and expert kidney transplant surgeons," said attorneys Richard Finkel and Ronald Kleinberg in a statement reported by the Associated Press. 

"The transplants were successful and the donors and the recipients are now leading full and healthy lives... the recipients are no longer burdened by the medical and substantial health dangers associated with dialysis and kidney failure." 

Rosenbaum admitted that he would assist the donors and the recipients to coordinate a false story that would deceive hospital officials into believing that the donation was completely voluntary and was not part a monetary transaction.

"Rosenbaum admitted he was not new to the human kidney business when he was caught brokering what he thought was a black market deal," said U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman, according to CalgaryHerald.com. 

Rosenbaum's Brooklyn home from whence he worked.

"A black market in human organs is not only a grave threat to public health, it reserves lifesaving treatment for those who can best afford it at the expense of those who cannot. We will not tolerate such an affront to human dignity."

Prosecutors say that between 2006 and 2009, Rosenbaum brokered three kidney transplants.  The recipients of the organs paid him between $120,000 and $150,000.

Rosenbaum was also arrested in July 2009. The FBI had begun a crackdown on money laundering and political corruption in New Jersey.

If convicted of his most recent crimes, Rosenbaum could serve five years for each count and be ordered to pay a $250,000 fine. Rosenbaum agreed to forfeit his earning and might be deported back to Israel.  He is currently under house arrest and will receive sentencing in February.

The practice of buying and selling organs is illegal in almost every country in the world.  However, demand for kidneys has grown exponentially, with 4,540 people dying the U.S. last year while for a transplant, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing. There are just not enough willful donors to meet the demand and so the organ black market has increased around the globe.

Art Caplan is the co-chairman of the United Nations task force on illegal organ trafficking.  He said Rosenbaum is guilty of one of the worst crimes a human being can commit.

NY organ trafficker Rosenbaum admits buying kidneys in Israel for $10,000 ~ and selling them in U.S. for $120,000.  

However, anthropologist and organ trade expert Nancy Scheper-Hughes, who described Israel as a 'pariah' in the organ transplant world, has said in the past that many of the donors were desperately poor immigrants from eastern European countries such as Moldova, Romania and ternationally, about one quarter of all kidneys appear to be trafficked," Caplan said according to CBS news. "But until this case, it had not been a crime recognized as reaching the United States."





Actually, the Organ Theft and other horrendous human rights abuses are covered throughout the “Beyond Disgust Series” which can be accessed simply by popping in "beyond disgust" to the search engine on the upper right.

1 comment:

  1. Mamoud El-Yousseph4 November 2011 at 20:25

    Noor, this is an eye opener. Thank you for such an excellent piece of investigative journalism.

    I did coauthored an article with my friend Tammy Obeidallah,entitled, " 10 reasons not to honor Israel. Coincidentally,
    # 10 reason was about the very same subject you raised. Here is the reference from the article.

    < #-10 It has been documented in both Palestinian and Israeli media and in court proceedings that Israeli Occupation Forces are operating a Palestinian butchery at Abu Kabir in Tel Aviv. Israeli forces routinely kidnap Palestinians at checkpoints, house raids, and hospital wards; or exhume them from cemeteries in order to harvest their organs for profit inside and outside Israel — all without the family’s knowledge. (See here and here)

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