Montrealer fights to recover savings
Man in failing health says $200,000 in cash wrongly seized by police
— From his earliest years living in a Brooklyn housing project during the Depression through a career consulting for the U.S. State Department in various Cold War hot spots, Jesse Goldstaub developed a knack for extracting himself from trouble.
But now 83 years old and in failing health, he finds himself ensnared in a criminal drug case and fearing he might die without recovering life savings that he says were wrongly seized by the police.
In 2011 after a routine checkup, Goldstaub was diagnosed with esophageal cancer. Doctors told him his chances of survival were not good.
He had settled in Montreal in the late 1980s. Single with no children or immediate family, he said he forged a close friendship with a man he met at his synagogue, Samuel Szlamkowicz. “We became fast friends” Goldstaub said this week in an interview at the office of his lawyer, Eric Sutton.
When the cancer diagnosis sunk in, Goldstaub turned to Szlamkowicz for a favour. He had squirrelled away $200,000 in cash, and in an application filed with Quebec Court on Feb. 7, he says he asked Szlamkowicz to hold his savings for him, along with a copy of his will and a sketch of the tombstone he had picked out.
There was no written agreement, he said, because he trusted his friend’s word.
Last June, his old friend was one of two dozen people charged following a Montreal police investigation targeting marijuana grow operations, Operation Paprika. According to a sworn police affidavit used to obtain a warrant, Szlamkowicz “facilitated” the production of marijuana in apartment buildings he owned. He has pleaded not guilty to charges of marijuana production and conspiracy.
Upon his arrest, police searched a safe-deposit box in the name of his daughter and son-in-law and found 40 envelopes containing a total of $200,000 cash. They seized the money, alleging it was the proceeds of crime.
Goldstaub counters that the money is the fruit of his labour and is asking the court to return it to him. A date for a hearing has not been set, but the prosecution is contesting his application.