PAIR OF HEELS
Bilked seniors of $600G, bought pricey shoes: feds
THREE PEOPLE were spotted dashing from the scene of a raging fire at a historic Lower East Side synagogue Sunday night, police sources said Monday.
FDNY officials are still investigating the cause of the blaze, which gutted the Beth Hamedrash Hagodol synagogue — a 167-year-old house of worship on Norfolk St. near Broome St. It’s not clear if the people spotted running — two male, one female — had anything to do with the fire.
The crumbling synagogue was shuttered in 2007, and its leadership later filed a “hardship application with the city Landmarks Preservation Commission to tear it down, but later backed off on that application after hearing community input.
The city Buildings Department issued a full vacate order Monday, calling the synagogue “structurally compromised.”
“We don’t know what the condition of the building is going to be. We still hope it can be preserved,” said Rabbi Mendel Greenbaum, who heads the congregation. “We took out a while ago all the holy scrolls and all the valuables, so thankfully nothing was harmed.”
Greenbaum said investigators were looking into whether “some kids” were responsible for the blaze, but didn’t offer specifics Monday. A PAIR OF swindlers scammed two senior citizens out of nearly $600,000 so they could bankroll their lavish lifestyles and addiction to fancy shoes, authorities said.
Crocodile leather sneakers, blue suede kicks and Christian Louboutin shoes were just some of the footwear allegedly purchased in the crime, according to court papers.
Tavoy Malcolm (photo inset) even used her Instagram account to model a pair of mint green Pigalle pumps by Louboutin that were bought with a dying woman’s credit card, officials said. Malcolm also cruised around in a MercedesBenz sedan, according to prosecutors.
The prosecutors accused Malcolm and Lorindo Powell of bilking a 77-year-old woman who ended up losing her house. They also scammed a 91-year-old woman during the last four months of her life.
Malcolm was arrested Friday and Powell on Saturday. They were remanded after arraignments in Brooklyn Federal Court.
The suspects, both Jamaican nationals, allegedly carried out multiple elder-fraud scams around New York for years. Malcolm, 26, and Powell, 29, showed a “total lack of conscience,” authorities said. They are facing up to 20 years behind bars if convicted of wire and bank fraud.
The scams usually involved a bogus claim that a senior citizen won money in a lottery or sweepstakes — but the lucky winners just needed to disclose some financial information or pay some taxes so they could get their winnings.
The $572,000 fraud against the first victim, the 77-year-old woman, started in 2006 when an unknown person contacted her about a windfall coming her way.
Powell soon took over for the other person and kept telling the woman to keep up on her payments. But the bogus tax payments put the woman behind on her mortgage, and she defaulted on her home loan as a result. Powell persuaded the woman to pass along the mortgage payments to him, too — not to the mortgage lender.
The elderly woman now lives in a rented room, authorities said.
The other victim also got snagged with the “sweepstakes” line.
Malcolm and Powell persuaded the woman to write checks to them and to let them take over her accounts. When the two got ahold of the woman’s credit card, prosecutors said, they racked up $10,000 at Barneys on shoes.
Powell and Malcolm were living together in Guttenberg, N.J., with Powell’s sister, who’s facing charges of cocaine importation and conspiracy to import cocaine.
Powell’s attorney Joseph Kilada said the charges are “very serious and we intend on defending them vigorously.”
Malcolm’s attorney Donald DuBoulay declined to comment.