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Mel Evans / AP
Levy Izhak Rosenbaum, a 61-year old Israeli citizen who lived in Brooklyn who pleaded guilty last October to charges that he brokered kidney transplants between paid donors and recipients, was sentenced to 2-1/2 years in prison.
NEW YORK -- An Israeli man who pleaded guilty to illegally brokering kidney transplants for profit in the United States, the first such conviction under federal law, was sentenced on Wednesday to two-and-a-half years in prison, prosecutors said.
Levy Izhak Rosenbaum, a 61-year old Israeli citizen who lived in Brooklyn, pleaded guilty last October to charges that he brokered kidney transplants between paid donors and recipients on three occasions.
Prosecutors said Rosenbaum charged between $120,000 and $150,000 to help three New Jersey residents find kidneys for transplant between 2006 and 2009.
He also pleaded to a count of conspiracy to broker a fourth kidney transaction following a sting operation leading to his arrest involving an undercover FBI agent who pretended to have a sick uncle.
NYC man pleads guilty to kidney trafficking
Prosecutors said Rosenbaum typically found donors in Israel through newspaper advertisements who were willing to give up a kidney in exchange for payment, and that he helped arrange the necessary blood tests to ensure a match and for the donors' travel to the United States.
As part of his service, he also helped donors and recipients invent a cover story to trick hospital staff into thinking the donation was a purely altruistic exchange between friends or relatives, which is legal, rather than an illegal business deal, according to prosecutors.
At least one relative of a kidney recipient spoke in defense of Rosenbaum at the hearing at the U.S. District Court in Trenton, New Jersey, on Wednesday, saying he was a hero who helped save her father's life, local media reported.
"My father was dying, and the system was failing us," Brooklyn resident Beckie Cohen said of her father's five-year wait on a kidney transplant list, according to New Jersey's Star-Ledger newspaper.
Nevertheless, one of the donors, who agreed to cooperate with the government's case in exchange for immunity from prosecution, described to the court that he felt exploited by Rosenbaum.
Facebook is now fueling organ donations
Elahn Quick, who agreed to have his kidney removed for $25,000, said he was having second thoughts as he lay on the hospital bed and raised it with his "caretaker," identified as a Rosenbaum associate named Ido. Quick described how the caretaker reassured him but before anything could be done to cancel or delay the surgery, he slipped out of consciousness.
"He was holding my hand, and he said it was not too late, but before I finished the conversation, I was gone," Quick said according to the Star-Ledger. He awoke hours later, after the surgery, to a nurse shaking him. The caretaker had disappeared, he said.
'Right into his pocket'
U.S. District Judge Anne Thompson also ordered Rosenbaum to forfeit $420,000 that he made during his time trading kidneys for cash in Brooklyn.
According to the paper, Thompson said that based on multiple letters she received on Rosenbaum's behalf, she believed he was a charitable person before he got "caught up" in the illegal business.
"This is a difficult case; it is not a prototype," she said in court before handing out the sentence, which could have been as high as 20 years, the Star-Ledger reported.
Rosenbaum's sentence also includes a $5,000 fine.
A kindergarten teacher in Texas has donated her kidney to the father of one of her students. KXAS-TV's Sara Story reports.
Paul J. Fishman, the New Jersey U.S. Attorney, whose office prosecuted the case, said Rosenbaum was motivated by profit, not the saving of lives.
"A black market where the moneyed sick can buy replacement parts from the less fortunate is not only grim, it apportions lifesaving treatments unfairly, insults donor dignity, and violates the law," Fishman said in a statement following the sentencing by Judge Thompson.
"Prison is an appropriate punishment for Levy Rosenbaum's illegal capitalization on others' desperation. Although Rosenbaum painted himself as a benevolent kidney matchmaker, the criminal profits went right into his pocket."
Rosenbaum's lawyers could not immediately be reached for comment. Rosenbaum had been facing up to five years in prison for each of the four counts to which he pleaded guilty, prosecutors said.
Rosenbaum is due to begin his sentence on October 12. As he is not a U.S. citizen, immigration authorities will decide whether to attempt to deport him once he has finished his sentence.
Msnbc.com staff and Reuters contributed to this report.
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Leave a Comment:
Donors of life saving or life improving organs, should be allowed to gain financially for the sacrifice...if Donors want to donate without expectation of reward, that should be allowed as well...It is a win/win...donors and patients
But yes there should be safeguard set up with in the Healthcare industry (not Fed Gov) to insure that organs go to those most in need first, always
I w
I know what Dan is thinking...why do the insist on putting popups in the middle of a web page...If I wanted to read a newer or older story, I wouldn't be commenting on this story....
I guess only big brother gets a say on who lives and who dies.
The system is broken.
This is not about saving lives but the POWER to choose who lives or dies.
I bet if you are politically connected you get bumped to the TOP of the list. All the while the little guy will be left to die.
it will come to that one day, I'm certain. Unfortunately, once again, it will be the poor who are barterning their organs in exchange for a pitiance of what they are worth to the dying - and only the affluent dying who can afford to buy the organs. i.e. those who aren't wealthy will still be the ones dying while waiting for a suitable organ replacement.
To an extent you are right. However, the reason why it isnt is because it can't be taxed. If there was an organ tax fee then it would be ok. So if it was legal then you wouldnt have to worry about under the table stuff. You could take out taxes and on so. I know, you could include it in FICA, Social Security, and Retirement. Hey in fact, you could even charge a tax on everyone to pay for the whole thing. Entire corperations based on organ harvesting and banks would pop up over night.
Ok, now that I have that out of the way. Ok all you "gubment wants to run your life an control who lives and dies" people. Please stop and think for a second. If something becomes sell'able. As in it can be sold, traded, and taxed. Then that means it is counted as an asset. Which means it can be taken for things such as child support, default school loans, money owed. Also how would you like the going rate for a kidney to be factored into, say, loan applications, federal and state income tax, or anything you have to report. Could you imagine the difficulty of getting any sort of financial assistance if every person in America started out with a $25k asset just hanging around. I dont think you would really want to see the economy if this happened.
Also think about it. If you switched it to the pay for play system as it were. Then you would only be increasing the very thing you are complaining about the most, "I guess only big brother gets a say on who lives and who dies." Yea, with your new system it wouldnt be big brother deciding. It would be the almighty dollar. So which system would you want there Rocky boy. The one where the "little guy" has a shot, or the one where the little guy aint even in the equation?
No system is perfect. I mean Cheney got a new heart. His original heart tried to do us all a favor so he got a new one. Cant even start to understand that one.
Rocky Road - your comment has no merit. Every potential transplant patient has to undergo a series of test to determine IF they can be listed. After listing, there are rules connected to that as well.
Affluence of the patient is not a reason for moving to the top of the list. Degree of sickness is. Patients have to be matched to their donors. And to be quite honest, getting a donated organ is not a ticket home free. There are still anti-rejection drugs that must be taken, and they can have their side effects as well.
My Father was tested for placement on the kidney transplant list and didn't qualify due to his personal health and health history of his immediate family. None the less, he lived for 9+ years on dialysis and was not hateful because he couldn't be listed.
I am torn about this article. On the one hand, if the man is finding suitable donors, then that helps those on the list. I can see covering his costs for the search, but not a profit. Many people die while on the transplant list as there are not enough donor organs to go around. And probably never will be. This is an area where having the ability to clone an organ from the patient's cells would be a Godsend. Then the chance of rejection would be greatly reduced. But that is another subject.....
That is really the point, it is the profit incentive that drives the search for matches, if you remove the profit for the donor or the "facilitator" the patient doesn't get the life saving organ, and most likely no one does...yea, maybe it sucks that people do thing for money that they wouldn't do for free...but really is it any different that donating days of your life and sweat and tears for a paycheck???
Dam*. I was hoping I could get a kidney from this guy before he got busted. Oh well, back to Brazil.
The government does not decide who gets a kidney, healthcare professional do. The government is only enforcing the laws that prohibit buying and selling. As it stands now the wealthiest among us have longer lifespans and allowing them to buy body parts from those who're in desperate need of money would only expand the gap.
What America needs is equal healthcare for all irregardless of wealth or lack of wealth. The profit motive for healthcare should be removed once and for all time from healthcare delivery.
I tell ya what I'm gonna do. I have this slightly used kidney that the lady only used on the holy day and never ate a pork chop. For you--a deal--$150K.
Rich men have money to trade. Poor men have only themselves, to be sold piecemeal. over time.
@Rick
If we do that, then don't we also need to remove the profit motive for: people who sale cars to doctors, build houses for doctors, prepare food for doctors, educate students who want to be doctors??...doesn't seem fair to tell doctors they can't make a profit and then make them buy things from companies who are allowed to make a profit
Two and a half years? I wonder what that sentence would have been if he had been black or Hispanic? don't forget, the Eskimos are god's frozen people. A doner should be able to make money from donation, but the broker should not.
100% agree. It is my body and have the right to sell off any part to either help me financially or my family.
Here I have mixed feelings. Black market medicine is like vigilantism. When the system fails you, who are you going to turn to?
Rick, who do you think writes all the rules and administrated the health care people? Have you ever worked in hospital administration you would know this.
If they allowed people to sell their kidneys only the rich would get one unless a poor person had a relative who was a match who would donate for free. This is why they don't allow people to sell their organs. Everyone would want to profit except relatives and sometimes even they would want money.
If that's so, do you have a problem with exploitation of women by pimps. In this case, he's the pimp and the donors are the exploited girls.
In my experience the rich waited in line like the rest of us. Depending on your blood type you can wait up to five years. My blood type is A- which comes out to be about three year wait. O being the most common generally takes the longest. There are five points of matching and you can transplant with one match. Mine happened to be a three and has lasted me 12 years so far but is now failing. With my next transplant I will have four kidneys, two in the front and two in the back. I am a donor at death for all my good organs. More people need to be donors especially at death, after all what do you have to lose
The government does decide who gets the organs...in a way. UNOS (United Network for Organ Sharing) is the government agency that controls the waiting list. Donor info is put into the UNOS computer, and a list gets generated of the best possible matches for that donor's organs. The government controls UNOS, to help ensure that organs are allocated fairly, to the best possible matches.
I know that a lot of people here are talking about compensation for donors, but I don't agree with that. If you offer a donor, or a family of a donor, money for the organs, it gives them incentive to lie about their medical and social histories. Our testing for things like HIV is not perfect, and it takes time. It also puts the poor at risk, as they might be desperate enough to sell a kidney when they are not in good enough health to do so. When you add money to the donor/transplant system it encourages unethical behavior. That's why the nation's Organ Procurement Organizations are government regulated and not for profit.
This article is telling a minor portion of this large, long-running nightmare and the defendant got off very lightly. The real horror show going on is that Israeli's have been harvesting organs for the black market for decades. Surely, they are not alone, but the denials are always phrased as, "This is just more anti-Semitism (sic)!"
In the 1980s and 1990s, nations started to ban Israelis from adopting their orphans, as it was discovered that Israeli parents were adopting the orphans by which to harvest their organs to be put in their sick, naturally born children. The charges and claims were denounced in Israel as false, anti-Semitic slurs.
Not long after, more claims surfaced that adult Arabs (primarily Palestinians) were being murdered and their organs harvested for Israeli patients. Again, the claims were denounced.
But nearly 20 years after the claims had surfaced, followed by denouncements by the Israeli news media and government, the Israeli government eventually admitted that in the 1990s Israelis had a large black market for stolen and harvested organs. They muted the revelations by claiming that only Israeli's were targeted for harvesting.
But several years ago, new reports surfaced - with photographic evidence - that IDF soldiers were killing Palestinians and Lebanese Arabs so as to steal and harvest their organs. At first, the claims were again denounced as anti-Semitic. Then they events were rationalized, that the organs were taken from people attacking Israelis. A conservative, anti-Israeli news organization in Sweden had broken the story worldwide, so the defense was, "Consider the source." Alas, within months the arrests for this criminal case were announced, revealing a sizable Israeli organ black market operating on the American East Coast, run by Orthodox rabbis.
To what does this story boil down? Orthodox and ultra-orthodox Judaism is founded on ethnocentric and theo-centric beliefs of supremacy. Yes, the same B.S. upon which the Nazis operated and justified killing millions of Jews, Slavs, gays, disabled people and Gypsies.
And again, this black market does not just target Arabs. Israelis have also been victimized. Reform Jewish Israelis and atheist Israelis are considered unclean and unfit by the orthodox and ultra-orthodox. The orthodox and ultra-orthodox in Israel are destroying the nation from within, making war with with each other, and in the case of the orthodox, making war with Israels Arab neighbors. They are prone to great violence. They treat women like filth (read about their laws governing the male-female and husband-wife relationships).
We are waging war on Arabs and Africans because of our unrelenting and blindly obedient support of these proven criminals against humanity - the very ones who have repeatedly stabbed us in the back, such as with the Mayflower Madam conspiracy, the stealing of our military secrets and weapons technology, selling these secrets to our enemies, and the attack on the U.S.S. Liberty, among many other offenses. The Israelis are the bullies of the Middle East and we supply them the baseball bats in their hands. And we wonder why the Third World hates us?
While there are surely many good Israelis, this is a largely arch-conservative nation (80%) who continue to be the enemies of everyone else's human rights. Time to consider that giving greater than 50% of the foreign aid we distribute globally to this miniature evil empire should stop now. The Cold War has been over for 20 years. Time for our policy to move forward.
Remarkably light sentence for this guy. Makes you wonder if judge was Jewish as well.
Although I generally agree with Kate0914, some compensation might be in order, for instance, to compensate for loss of income or any other such incidental expense, but this guy, who was only an intermediary, made a huge profit. Despicable and 2 1/2 years is not enough.
I see absolutely nothing wrong with what he has done. If you have the money, and someone wants to take that money in return for an organ to save your life, than you should have a right to do it. Since you are sick and most probably don't have the contacts nor even the energy to try to find a correct donor, a middle man must be used. After all, it is used by the hospitals on their "list". If I needed a kidney and was told there was a five year waiting list and that I would most probably die before my time came to get a kidney, I can assure you I'd be looking for a kidney broker.
Don't think for a moment that the super-wealthy sit on that five-year list. They somehow find a donor and don't have to wait the five years. It's only the great unwashed who have to do that. I wonder why????
I very much favor being able to sell organs. I might need one someday.
So the big concern here is that the wealthy will exploit the underprivileged. Yeah, that's something new for everyone to worry about, because that has never happened and never will happen.
God, where do you start citing how common this is in human nature? Wall-street bailouts or John's paying money to runaways for blow-jobs? Trophy wives who trade their good looks for security or CEO's who trade the training only they had access to for the lion's share of a company's profits? Or what about the government who can put a gun in your face or throw you in prison if you don't want to pay taxes and fund their next spending spree on whatever they think will keep them in business?
Powerful, wealthy people can take advantage of others and, when it suits them, will. Not EVERY powerful, wealthy person will, but many because they can and that's simply human nature.
This action (arresting the big bad black market crook) looks like a noble thing but it's just a show. Give our planet 100 years and if we don't find a way to synthesize kidneys (and other organs) and if the population continues to grow as it will then this kind of thing will become legalized, profitable, and a cottage industry which will eventually be pushed aside by large corporations who will inflict abuses you couldn't imagine on a large number of people and get away with it until a hungry group of lawyers want to take their money and call them the bad guys. At that point, a government institution will be created (at the taxpayers expense) to oversee the organ trade. It will be as inept and inefficient at regulating that business as it is current business. And then some guy will wonder why he can't just sell the kidney he's got for it's full value. Textbooks will explain it's not really HIS kidney, part of it belongs to the government he owes his allegiance to (via taxes) and the other part is just part of the great machinery of capitalism, which supports him (even though it really bends him over and screws him every day).
Who needs Nostradamus when you've got human history and behavior as your guide?
wlee and willowbrook, good posts.
I've seen how this works on both sides of the coin. Have been a hospital worker for many years. My husband received a liver 20+ years ago and has been waiting for a kidney 22 months. Dialysis keeps you going but the quality of life is diminished and dialysis long term has some serious consequences. No system is perfect but I've yet to even hear a hint about anything inappropriate occurring and this has been through two different hospital systems in two different states.
For those reading this article who have an interest because they are waiting on the list or have a loved one waiting, if you are unfamiliar with home hemo, please check out the provided links. If you have questions, please contact me through my home page. I did my husband's home hemo treatments for a good while. He is back in center now unfortunately but please consider home hemo. Chances are, you'll be very pleasantly surprised and have very much improved quality of life until that day when your new kidney becomes available.
http://kidney.niddk.nih.gov/kudiseases/pubs/homehemodialysis/
http://homedialysis.org/
http://www.nxstage.com/homehemodialysis
wlee, you are in my Prayers.
Chris Eidam wrote: The real horror show going on is that Israeli's have been harvesting organs for the black market for decades.
Well, there you go then! Give a Jew a kidney and he'll pee for a day.. Show him how to cut kidneys out of Palestinian refugees and indigents and he'll pee on the rest of the world for life.
The two of you just had to make this into something that this wasn't, didn't you??? Nothing better to do today???
chefaz,
For christ sake, chill out and loosen up that hyper-tight sphincter. Commentary is commentary irrespective of your desire to pass judgment on its relevancy.
Try taking your own advice. And while you're at it, take your judgement passing hate-mongering with you.
Nothing hate-mongering about it. The issue, in case you missed it, is fairness and equality that transcends race, ethnicity, nationality, income, gender, age and philosophy. Just because human nature continues to curse the planet with certain individuals and groups who have no regard for those values doesn't mean I can't or won't continue to comment on it.
Tranquil,
peeuuuuu.
Your post(s) do not bear out the fairness and equallity that transcends blah blah blah you boast of sigling out Jews.
Its very telling you use the word Jew in place of "Israeli"
As it stand organ soliciting goes on all over the world. Israel is the only country in the world that goes after and prosecutes abusers of the system. So far the non- jewish Palestinian organ solicitors (and others: China, Arabia, US etc) haven't been caught yet...when theyre not blowing their own organs up in the presence of civilians to kill them.
Chris, this guy brokered a deal between Israelis (Jews) and people that needed kidneys. He did not steal them or forced people to do it against their will, but nice rant a/h.
telling the guy who finds the matching donor and arranges everything to do this for free, would be like telling the doctors and nurses to do the operations for free...
Al718, you and apparently quite a few people here have not been following this issue relating to Israeli organ harvesting and the black market. I am guessing quite a few of you never even read this article in its entirety, as you missed the part about the "donor" who had second thoughts on the operating table and they still put him to sleep and cut away.
There is something chilling that of all the posts I have ever made on forums and comment boards, in excess of 10,000, that it is this comment - which can be substantiated as factual in archival mainstream news stories - that is the first and only one to be censored.
FYI, I have a wide ethnic range of friends who are immigrants or first-generation Americans of parents from all around the world, of various religions. I am not religious. My wife is an immigrant. So were my last four girlfriends. And I have worked for Orthodox Jews. I am not a bigot and I am not misinformed. Heck, I have a journalism degree. Maybe that's why I read more news articles than the average bear. And yeah, there are some serious human rights violations perpetrated by Israel - particularly connected to the arch-conservative segment of the population - including by government employees: the IDF.
I am not alone in calling attention to what is happening. When I read the comments attached to the Swedish news story a few years back, the same blind Jewish and Israeli defenders tried to smother anybody who raised facts, but alas, quite a few progressive, informed and fair-minded Israelis and Jews chimed in to acknowledge that there is a long, dark history of black market organ harvesting connected to Israel, including by IDF soldiers.
Chris,
Your creds don't entitle you a free pass. Journalists are notorious for promoting their own selective bias and agendas.
The issue first and foremost is Organ harvesting the: under-handed kind. You as a journalist should be impelled to "keep it real" that is: point out organ harvesting is a world-wide phenomenon. If you do your homework (nowadays journalists are notoriously lazy when it comes to original, unbiased, dispassionate investigative research) properly you would not focus on Jews and Israel rather instead to broaden the scope of the conversation into realistic context. Indeed Israelis (not Israel)are comparatively small players. But, they're are making the most and only apparent progress with courtailing it. The big fish are India China, France, Former Soviet Republics etc.
So what that you worked for orthodox Jews. That's a red herring. Most people have un-easy relationships and opinions of "their boss" current or former. Just because I worked for a fundamentalist Christian(s) does not give me special license and/or authority to comment on Fundamental Christianity without censure etc. If anything it proves your mastery of Journalistic Tricks.
Your long dark history of IDF organ-harvest is the latest chapter of the long dark history of blood libel.
yes Chris I read the article and know the trial (the first)was in the US
I also wonder when doctors will start going to prison for charging huge fees for the transplant operations. I mean, if the donors are acting out of sure altruism, then shouldn't the surgeons do the same?
If transplanting organs were all that simple, why aren't you in the practice?
(I know of a transplant doctor, who does his operations at night, when the hospital is quiet. It takes hours of standing, concentration, and years of study and surgery to be able to do it. Student loans that must be paid, and continuing education and malpractice insurance.... Yeah, anyone can do it. You can, too.)
Yeah, that doctor's the hardest working man on Earth. No factory worker ever put in the hours or concentration. No underpaid Ph.D at any university ever studied any harder. You should offer him sexual favors, babs. He needs a break and a pay increase, that poor altruistic soul.
OK Cass. That would be like saying the cable company shouldnt charge because you really enjoy using your internet. So they should be happy to provide the service to you for free. Or the Lawyer that should give you free services because he REALLY believes in your case. The doctors who perform the transplants are very skilled, very educated people. With more education and time under thier belt than most of the people that run the damn country. Its fee for service. Its what this country is based on. You want it, you gonna pay for it." It aint like playing leggos. It takes some skill take out/put in an organ. Remember it took at least 9 months to even make one of the damn things.
And to follow the idea trail of Rockyroad, I found it interesting who was prosecuted. They prosecute the broker using an offer of immunity to one of the doners. No charges for the people who paid to get the kidneys? Go figure.
Kinda sounds like prostitution.
Which also should be legal
Ironically though, a woman can sell her eggs for profit and allow some stranger to have a kid with her DNA that they may or may not abuse, hypothetically placing another human in potential jepoardy; however she could face prsoecution for selling anything else that might improve someones quality of life even though it does not jepoardize another human.
They got the "broker", now it's time to charge the people seeking to get to the head of the line for available kidneys, by "bribing the broker"!
The one turned over and gave up the broker. At which point all the other people involved poofed and left him to handle it. Trust me, Jew or not. There will always be a gaggle greedy folks out there that you can get to do your dirty work if you pay them enough.
Way too light of a sentence........those organs would have been used in a prioritized necessity order. Who knows how many people diddn't survive beacuse someone else , who was needy, but not as needy at that point in time was able to obtain the organs because they had the money, or the "connection"......perhaps manslaughter charges are more in order.
Your thinking two dimensionally. The same people would have died because the people who donated would not have done so.
Well these were ISRAELI people, he didnt bribe donors off of the US list. He improted people from Israel, covered there airfare and probably also paid them a bit of $$. He SAVED lives, sure people had to pay. What, you think you get a second chance in life for FREE? Why not a free job, a free home, free meals and have a 20 year old blonde with a DD chest wiping your butt after the bathroom. Sorry, I was thinking of paradise...
Idiot. Idiocy.
I doubt those "organs" would have been donated at all, with out the promise of compensation to the donors...and I would add that if it saving lives that you are worried about, then a program to compensate and encourage organ donation though compensation, would save lots of lives...and get the Black Market out of it
this is the argument that those who oppose this use. they say this would basically open the doors for the haves to exploit the have nots. i mean a kidney really starts to seem disposable when you are boiling your shoes to make a soup. in fact in this case you have this guy charging recipients 120k - 150k while only offering the donor 25k, even if he is spending 20k to bring the donor to the US and for testing that is still a 75-105k net for him as opposed to the 25k for the guy who now has 1 kidney.
wow
how can you justify this prison term
when the usa hospitals take body parts
and make a profit off of them???
backassward rules i tell you
if someone wants to sell a body part that is part of them have at it
usa takes peeps who died
takes the body parts and makes a profit off of them
whats the difference?
i say the hospital should pay the family of the deceased the hospital is taking parts from
#1 reason why i dont donate body parts at the end of my life
only the rich can get rich?
not as far as im concerned
donating my body will be my kids chose
i will never agree to donations unless my family gets a monitary sum just like the hospitals
tit for tat
Let people sell (or rent) their bodies. It is their body. Sell organs or blood, or rent the use of them (prostitution) For some it is their only skill and method of being self sufficient.
IF participants are educated, licensed, regulated, monitored, and taxed, it can be safer and disease free and a benefit to the community. Providing legal jobs.
Uncle Bill (I'm glad you're not mine). Your ideas are even worse than depicted in the movie, Soylent Green!
Soylent green is made out of soy and lint. I prefer Soylent blue, but that's just my preference.
This despicable man/animal should be deported at the first possible moment, and marked in some way, so he does not return to the US! we have enough home-grown criminals, without having to put up with foreign criminals!
Yet you have to see the lifestyle that he had living in Deal N.J. What Rabbi did you ever hear of owning a huge seaside home with sports cars and off shore bank accounts. Just drive through Deal New Jersey and see how these crooks live. The tentacles of greed run deep in Deal N.J. We live right next to Deal and everything they deal in is with bags of cash and blood stained at that. There are allot more crooks to go after their. Hopefully the government gets all of them. Everyone that lives around the area of Deal knows what evil presides there.
Anti-semite racist!
Here we go the anti- Semite card. I was wondering when it would come. Guess what ,I'm not anti- Semite and i have allot of close Jewish friends that are in total agreement.So what else do you have?
There is a bit of sleaze in Deal N.J. ..... most of N.J. is sleaze. I grew up in Jersey, I am a Jew, and mb is right on this one. This is not anti-Semitism... it is anti-crime and immorality.
TonyinWyo, no one said anything about hating Semites. Now the Jews on the other hand... :-p
The dictionary definition of anti-semite is "someone who hates jews", but if you don't like the term, I am sure
Tony will be willing to switch to calling you "bigot". I, personally, will be happy to use that term.
This mans values parallel Ronald Reagans, when he suggested that handicap ramps should have to be economically justitiable! Human life should not be bought and sold, and you can't put a price on human dignity!
yes, u can put a price on human dignity, humans are not some miraculous special creature that is above everything else, we are just animals, if u can sell a chicken you can sell a person, this man clearly knew that and the ones selling/buying the kidneys knew that too.
obammycare.
Couldn't do much to these guys, Israel wouldn't like it. After all, aren't they our "Allies" LOL, LOL.
Israel wouldn't give a damn about this guy.
It's no argument that people are in constant need of organ donors, but it doesn't change the fact that the method for going about this is completely wrong. He is obviously a religious person based on his yarmulke on the head and unshaven beard, so I would hope that his religious convictions would remind him of the fact that God will never be pleased with a person who is benefitting from the suffering and misfortune of others. I hope while he's in jail, he'll ponder the errors of his ways and be genuinely sorry for playing on the emotional distress of people in need, instead of being sorry that he was caught making money in a way beyond unethical.
More likely, he will be pondering all the lives he saved thanks to the profit motive...and the emotional distress of those who died while hoping that altruism would save them. Bottom line: Appeals to altruism do not work...the profit motive does.
I read allot of your vines and it seems your fast for damage control. You definitely must be in the Deal N.J inner blood money circle. Only a crook protects another crook. Don't try to make this piece of @!$%# into a kind giving humanitarian. His huge offshore accounts and his lavish lifestyle say other wise.
MB, people like me have been arguing on this site in favor of compensation for organ donation for a long time. And I, for one, never even heard of Deal, New Jersey before. Our point is that NO ONE gets very far by looking for kind giving humanitarians...but they do very well in offering to pay them. I need not add that transplant surgeons have a pretty lavish lifestyle, too, and no one questions their right to enjoy it, in return for all the money they make.
mountainbike8265
anti-semite racist.
Tony, You must be either his lawyer or his accountant.
Only one word adequately describes Mr. Rosenbaum: KIKE!!!!
OR Heeb :)
Filthy Dead Sea pedestrian.
Part of the problem in this specific case is related to Jewish religious beliefs:
judaism.about.com/library/3_askrabbi_o/bl_simmons_organdonation.htm
This has nothing to do with the fact that this man is a Jew. It has everything to do with the fact that he is a greedy a**hole.
Wrong! It has everything to do with it.
A firing squad is in order, then let him buy new organs from his blood money
anti-semite
he didnt say anything anti semetic....those who jump at the shadow of racism are far worse than racists
Hey TonyinWyo,
Get your facts straight; This piece of crap is NOT a Semite. Semetic people are those indigenous to the Middle East. This man is of eradicated European filth.
If i want to gain cash for my kidneys...why shouldn't i? of course it should be regulated by the medical industry but what harm does it do?
I would like to buy your esphogas....how is $2000?deal?
well unfortunatley their is only one espophogas in me....but if i ever lose my job and become desperate we can discuss my kidneys
Its so disturbing, i may remove myself off the donors list, because disgusting people like this want to market my body parts. If any one profits, it should be my family, not these ilk.
Bingo, Scott! If anyone profits it should be your family...and you. As it is, if you are on the donor list, there are PLENTY of people who will profit...they are called doctors.
your family could profit, if only it was legal, the only reason this man is profiting off it is because the feds are dumb enough ( or perhaps just unresponsive enough) to leave it illegal
its the same reason prohibition sparked organized crime, illegalizing things creates opportunities due to lack of regulation
What a freakin SLIME BAG. Jews will sell EVERY ONE of your body parts if they can get a hold of them. Hell, they will sell muddy water and market it as a magic elixer as we have all seen Carpet Baggers in the old west...This is why they must be seperated and put in Israel, to keep normal and decent human beings safe from their unholy, goyim-screwing ways. Never EVER trust a jew if you are NOT a jew. They have NO problems lying to you, stealing FROM you, or even raping goyim (non jew) children as young as 3 years old. Read a Jewish Talmud to learn more about these creatures and their ways, and how they plan on race mixing every non jew to destroy racial and cultural unity....
anti-semite racist!
We already kicked your Nazi a** once and we are willing do do it again. You low life creep.
That is why they are called filthy blood suckers. They are not happy sucking all the blood out of Wall street financially without worry of prosecution because the N.Y. legal system is run by them, so now they have a new gig. There is no limit to what they will do. You have to give them credit though,they come to this country to steal and not their own. They cry and shout about anti semitism while they are the biggest bigots and theives in the world. Besides that, this gefilte fish eating POS is an illegal alien. Guess thats ok if you are a jew. Its also OK to keep the sex crimes they commit in the city under the radar and not in the media like they would do to a white,black or any other race. After all, they are the chosen people.
Does anyone know who he left in charge to run the store while he's away? Cause I would donate whatever I don't need in my body for cash..
Kinda looks like Boris the Blade
What is wrong with brokering kidneys?
If someone has one they don't need, and someone needs one they don't have, then bring them together for their mutual benefit. And the efforts involved are worth the money.
The only thing wrong here is that someone was entrepenaurial enough to make some money without giving a cut (bribe) to the powers that be!
This is about the only intelligent thing you have said yet Tony......
Two and a half years and a $5k fine for greed and fraud of this magnitude? Quadruple it.
Wilmur, there was absolutely no fraud and no one says there was. And as for greed...that is not a crime, and is, instead, the basis of the profit motive, which works a whole lot better than altruism.
Absolutely no fraud? Cassandra, I applaud your talent for selective reading. (Your posting pattern here suggests you might be part of this criminal's PR team!)
From the article: "As part of his service, he also helped donors and recipients invent a cover story to trick hospital staff into thinking the donation was a purely altruistic exchange between friends or relatives, which is legal, rather than an illegal business deal."
Reading your posts, you seem to have a bee in your bonnet regarding altruism; perhaps you should try it some time. Doing things for no hope of profit -- especially difficult, painful things -- is a high like no other.
I wonder how many people woke up missing a kidney or two that were stolen from them.
For the umpteenth time...no one had to steal the kidneys, Mike, because the donors were paid.
yeah they were paid but they got shimmed in the deal. this guy was charging up to 150k while paying the donor 25k that math doesnt add up for me!!
All I want to know is when will this alien living in Brooklyn be deported to Israel?
Leftsux, your name suggests that you are a conservative...which means that you should support the profit motive. As it is, you remind me of some other so-called conservatives who are outraged because abortion clinics are, gasp, making a profit. Which is another way of saying that they are selling something that someone wants to buy, which is the very heart of true conservatism.
this is the ultimate haves and have not story. a friend of mine just lost a kidney two days ago to cancer. i hope these type things are never accepted in society. the thought that there are people out there willing to ingage in this type thing is shameful.
th, now I really am confused. If your friend was in need of a kidney transplant, then paying a donor might have saved him. And as for your other comment, that he and his accomplices should get life in prison...then, once again, that should go for the surgeons, too.
I AM a kidney cancer patient. Fortunately I went to the Mayo clinic and had a doc that was able to remove just part of the kidney (every other doc I saw wanted it all) but I was still prepared to lose it. AND I will tell you that I am VASTLY in favor of paying for organs.
Do you know how much freaking money my doc, hospital, and everyone else got off of me? If I need a kidney, then why shouldn't I have to pay? I paid for everything and everyone else!
also this man and his accomplises should be spending the rest of his life in prison.
I agree.
Shocking...a Jew
Shocking... you are a racist.
But, I'm sure he was a devoid, oops, devout Jew.
Ontario, political correctness is the last bastion of pure, unbridled, self-righteous bigotry. And, seriously, are Jews a race? And, even if it could be proven genetically that they are, which it hasn't and can't, so what?
I think that this is SAME thinking that Hitler used in the 1930's to sway the logical thinking of logical people.Nice try at the good ole American side step pal. RE-define whatever you you please but...with little doubt, you're a racist. Seek out some help fella' or take some time to dig deep in what remains in your humanity about race, greed...etc. If you're intelligent enough, you will quickly realize...you're not as superior as YOU think you are.