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BROOKLYN---A married couple has been indicted for stealing total ownership of a home they co-owned with an elderly Holocaust survivor and his wife who narrowly escaped Hitler's Germany in 1938.
In 1987 Harry Langer, now 81, and his wife Hanna, now 75, purchased a one-third share of a home on 51st Street in Borough Park. Defendants Mendel and Chaya Rosenfeld, both 58, already owned the other two-thirds share. The couples agreed to each live in one of the four apartments and rent the other two, the income paying for maintenance and taxes on the building and any profits being split according to their stake in the property.
The indictment alleges that in 1999 the Rosenfelds stole the Langers' share of the house.
Prosecutors say the theft was accomplished by a forged deed and other forged documents. Among the alleged false documents was a forged affidavit claiming that the Langers gave their share to the Rosenfelds for free because the Rosenfelds were the Langers' nephew and niece. In fact the couples are not related. The Rosenfelds immediately took out a $300,000 mortgage on the house. The mortgage is still on the house, even though the Rosenfelds deeded the house to Julius Spitzer, a relative, who in turn deeded the house to a shell corporation called Madison Realty Management.
The Rosenfelds are charged with second degree grand larceny, a class C felony which carries a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison. 12-21-06
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© 2006 North
Country Gazette
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