When Steven Ekstein and Jonathan Marcus saw the story about Rita Fulciniti, they were at turns angry and embarrassed that the senior citizen had lost $95,000 at the hands of her obviously Jewish real estate agent.
Though many would not connect the agent’s first name, Chaim, to Jews, some would, and that would bring disrepute to the Jewish People, they reasoned. So Ekstein launched a crowd funding effort on the website YouCaring.com, and Marcus contributed to it. As of Dec. 15, the campaign had managed to raise $1,748 to help allay the woman’s out-of-pocket losses.
A parallel, unconnected Gofundme campaign had raised $1,228 by the same date.
It may all go for naught. Only a day or two into the fundraising campaign, Ekstein learned arrangements had been made “to pay her back. Money has already been transferred to her this afternoon,” he told contributors on the YouCaring website.
Ekstein, a home inspector, and Marcus, a physician, had been stirred to action by a couple of reports by CBC News that outlined Fulciniti’s circumstances.
In 2014, the 66-year-old woman had put down $42,000 as a down payment on a condo in the Bloor Street and Islington Avenue area and was waiting until the building was completed before using $95,000, her life savings, to close the deal in August 2015. In the interim, she asked real estate agent Chaim Smilovici, also known as Howard, to find her a roommate to defray the costs.
He did so, but also asked her to lend him, through his company, Maximum Sports Management Group Inc., the $95,000, promising to pay her 12 per cent interest along with a $5,000 bonus when the loan was repaid.
Fulciniti made the loan, but Smilovici told CBC News he invested the money in a nightclub, and “the entire situation went backwards and the money is lost.”
He initially suggested he might be able to pay her $1,000 a month, and when told that might take a decade to repay, Smilovici told CBC News, “It is what it is” and “you can’t get blood from a stone.” He later told CBC News that his wife, who he said was not involved in the deal, would help him repay the $95,000.
Enio Zeppieri, Fulciniti’s lawyer in the failed condo deal, told The CJN he received a bank draft for $5,000 on Dec. 15 in person from Smilovici’s wife, who he said also verbally committed to give Fulciniti more money in March. He added that Smilovici’s wife suggested she might sell a condo in Florida to get the cash, but offered no written assurances or a specific amount.
“Whatever it was seemed to be more a public display than honest contrition.”
Fulciniti told CBC that without the $95,000, she couldn’t close the deal, so she lost her deposit and was forced to live in a homeless shelter. “I’m devastated because I’m a senior and that money was my life savings. Now I have absolutely nothing,” she said.
Ekstein said he and other Jews felt awful reading the story. “People don’t like Jews historically, but when you give them reason to solidify their opinions, it’s a shame,” he said. Jews, he believes, have “a collective duty to try to remedy it.”
He and 25 others, mostly friends, contributed sums ranging from $10 to $100 toward the YouCaring campaign.
They are wrapping up the campaign and are “currently making arrangements to get her the money,” Ekstein said.
Marcus said he normally doesn’t get involved in social causes, but “I read the article and I got mad. I looked at this guy’s name and said, he’s got to be Jewish.”
He posted the story on Facebook hoping to bring additional attention to the agent’s actions and, he said, perhaps shame him into “doing something about it.”
Meanwhile, lawyer Jack Bensimon, a friend of Marcus’, read the CBC News reports and was “very disturbed, more so out of the nature of his reaction. It’s simply unacceptable. Cases like this give a bad name to the Jewish community.”
Bensimon said he felt a moral responsibility to assist Fulciniti if she consents and has readied a team that includes legal and accounting professionals who can provide their services pro bono to help her.
Altogether, with the lost loan, forfeited deposit, promised bonus, interest and damages, she’s owed something like $150,000, he said. “I hate to see the Jewish people seen as scammers and scoundrels, so I believe it’s incumbent on myself to right the wrong.”
