Latest news with #Leibowitz
USA Today
a day ago
- Sport
- USA Today
Brooklyn Nets jersey history No. 20 - Barry Leibowitz (1967-68)
Brooklyn Nets jersey history No. 20 - Barry Leibowitz (1967-68) The Brooklyn Nets have 52 jersey numbers worn by over 600 different players over the course of their history since the franchise was founded in 1967 as a charter member of the American Basketball Association (ABA), when the team was known as the "New Jersey Americans". Since then, that league has been absorbed by the NBA with the team that would later become the New York Nets and New Jersey Nets before settling on the name by which they are known today, bringing their rich player and jersey history with them to the league of today. To commemorate the players who played for the Nets over the decades wearing those 52 different jersey numbers, Nets Wire is covering the entire history of the franchise's jersey numbers and the players who sported them since the founding of the team. The 21st of those 52 different numbers is jersey No. 20, which has has had a total of 28 players wear the number in the history of the team. The second of those players wearing No. 20 played in the (then) New Jersey Americans (now, Brooklyn Nets) era, guard alum Barry Leibowitz. After ending his college career at LIU, Leibowitz was picked up with the 48th overall selection of the 1967 NBA draft by the New York Knicks. The New Yorker instead signed with the ABA's (defunct) Pittsburgh Pipers, and was dealt to the Americans in 1967. His stay with the team would span just 24 games of the same season, coming to an end when he was traded again, this time to the (also defunct) Oakland Oaks. During his time suiting up for the Americans, Leibowitz wore only jersey No. 20 and put up 11.4 points, 3.0 rebounds, and 3.9 assists per game. All stats and data courtesy of Basketball Reference.
Miami Herald
02-06-2025
- Business
- Miami Herald
Broward businessman sentenced to 23 years after swindling Haitian investors
A South Florida moving company owner convicted of swindling millions of dollars from thousands of investors — including nurses, school teachers and military veterans — was sentenced to 23 years in prison on Friday in Fort Lauderdale federal court. Sanjay Singh, 45, borrowed hundreds of millions from the mostly working-class investors with promises of paying them double-digit returns and ownership of the trucks in his company, Royal Bengal Logistics Inc. In the end, about 2,000 investors — many of Haitian descent — fell for Singh's sales pitch and lost $54 million in what federal prosecutors described as a 'Ponzi scheme' that warranted 25 years in prison. In November, a 12-person jury unanimously found Royal Bengal's former president guilty of conspiring with other employees, wire fraud and money laundering. On Friday, U.S. District Judge David Leibowitz condemned Singh as a 'huckster' who lied to victims while raising $158 million between 2020 and 2023 for his Coral Springs company. After sentencing him, the judge scheduled a restitution hearing for June 26. A 66-year-old victim wrote a letter filed in court describing how he had to come out of retirement after losing his life savings. 'Mr. Singh, if you are not aware, and just like you, my wife and many others you duped are immigrants who came to the US to further our education and/or seek a better life,' wrote the victim, whose name was redacted. 'You stole our happiness, our retirement, our financial freedom, and our money that we entrusted you with.' 'Lying, lying, lying' At trial, prosecutors Roger Cruz and Robert Moore said Singh stole tens of millions from investors and lied to them about how he spent their money; instead, they said, he used the proceeds to buy a Mercedes, renovate his Coral Springs home and play the stock market as a day trader, squandering millions of the victims' investments. 'He was just lying, lying, lying — gambling in the stock market,' Moore told jurors during closing arguments at trial. 'He knew his company wasn't making any money, and he knew he was lying. ... This was a Titanic. This was a sinking ship.' After Singh was found guilty by the Fort Lauderdale jury in November, the judge allowed him to remain free on a $1 million bond. But the prosecutors urged Leibowitz to cancel his bond based on allegations that he could flee to his native India, especially as he faced potentially decades in prison. They wrote that Singh 'has the means and incentive to flee pending sentencing, and a history of deceiving this Court.' Judge Leibowitz sided with the prosecutors and revoked Singh's bond. Since mid-November, he's been held at a Broward County jail that doubles as a federal-lockup. Singh's assistant federal public defenders, Abigail Becker and Victor Van Dyke, sought a lower sentence at Friday's hearing, to no avail. They portrayed him at trial as a hard-working family man who made mistakes in building his business, but he didn't intentionally mislead anyone, lie to his company's investors or commit fraud. 'It's a story of a man who grew his business from zero trucks to 200 trucks with revenue of $18 million in three years,' Van Dyke told jurors, arguing Singh didn't live lavishly. 'This case is about trucks, not Ferraris.' In a separate Securities and Exchange Commission civil complaint, Singh and his company were accused of fraudulently raising money from investors through unregistered securities and related anti-fraud violations. As a result of the enforcement action, Singh lost control of his company in June 2023. A federal judge froze Singh's and the firm's assets, including bank accounts and real estate, and appointed the Fort Lauderdale law firm Tripp Scott as Royal Bengal's receiver to work on recovering money for investors. Many of them invested between $25,000 and $250,000 in Singh's company. In South Florida, such cases are increasingly common. For decades, the region has been known as the nation's con capital for its healthcare, income-tax and credit-card scams — not to mention high-end Ponzi schemes orchestrated by such notorious figures as the late Wall Street financier Bernard Madoff and disbarred Fort Lauderdale lawyer Scott Rothstein. Preying on Haitian Americans But South Florida has also become home to 'affinity fraud,' authorities say, where investment schemers prey on unsuspecting immigrants and other minorities who tend to trust the perpetrators because they either know them or someone else who vouches for them. The Haitian-American community has been hit particularly hard, but so have immigrants from Cuba, Colombia and Venezuela. In the Singh case, the former head of Royal Bengal was accused of conspiring with other employees, including Haitian Americans, to offer high-yield investments, promising mostly working-class people in the Haitian diaspora to use their money to expand operations and increase the company's fleet to 200 semi-trucks and trailers, as well as build a maintenance facility in Lubbock, Texas. Singh assured investors that his company was generating $650,000 to $1 million a month in revenue between 2019 and 2023 — and that their investments were safe and growing in value, according to court records and the FBI. During a November 2022 investor Zoom video conference, Singh boasted that Royal Bengal was a better company than Apple and Tesla. 'Better than Tesla' 'The fundamentals of this business can be trusted,' Singh said during the presentation. 'So let's move on from the point of view that [Royal] Bengal may last one day, two days — this is not Bitcoin. Our product is better than Apple. Our product is better than Tesla. You buy Apple, you buy Tesla, you start spending money. You buy [a] Royal Bengal [investment] contract, you start making money.' SEC investigators said Singh and Royal Bengal used tens of millions of dollars of new investors' funds to make Ponzi-like payments to old investors — until the purported business model collapsed due to operating losses of $18 million since 2019. The SEC complaint named Singh and his former company itself as defendants. Also, Singh's wife, Sheetal, and Constantina Celicourt, the spouse of the firm's former vice president of business development, were named as relief defendants. (Her husband, Ricardi Celicourt, who public records show was a Royal Bengal executive, was not named in the SEC lawsuit.) Singh's wife, Sheetal, and Constantina Celicourt were not charged with any wrongdoing, but the SEC sued them to collect proceeds that authorities say they received from Singh's alleged Ponzi scheme. If the SEC and federal prosecutors prevail in their parallel cases, it is likely that Singh, his company, his wife, and Celicourt will be required to pay back the money they're accused of stealing from the Haitian-American investors and other victims of the investment scam. After his conviction in November, Singh informed the SEC in Miami that he and his wife wanted to settle the agency's claims, SEC trial lawyer Russell O'Brien wrote in a court filing last month. Now that Singh has been sentenced, the next step is to meet with the couple to finalize the terms of any settlement, O'Brien said.
CBS News
02-04-2025
- Sport
- CBS News
Minnesotans support Israel's flag football team ahead of 2028 Olympics
Football's international popularity is on full display in Minnesota this week. The National Under-17 Flag Football Team from Israel playing and practicing with Team USA. "Coolest thing in the world. Not only is it cool, it's also truly important to my country, to represent," said Eitan Andron, an American-born Israeli. Andron is quarterback of Israel's U17 National Flag Football Team — two-time defending European Champions. He can't wait to take the field in practice and friendlies this week with Team USA at TCO Stadium. He hopes to join Israel's men's national team as it looks to qualify for flag football's 2028 Olympic debut. "We're exposed to basically the highest level of football in the world," Andron said. The sport has had a presence in Israel for over 20 years, thanks in part to Steve Leibowitz, who founded American football in Israel. "We now say it's 'Hebrew in the Huddle.' It's become an integration of Israelis who have never seen the sport before, except on television potentially, joining with American immigrant kids and American immigrants themselves," Leibowitz said. Vikings Owner and President Mark Wilf is among those helping the league's development. "He's been supporting our tackle football program for the last half a dozen years," Leibowitz said. Dani Eastman plays for Israel's national team in both tackle and flag football and is the defensive coordinator of the U17 flag team. "You're trying to win, you're trying to compete but you're also representing the Israeli people, you're representing the Jewish people. It landed really heavy on me when someone said you might be the only Jew a guy meets on a tournament his whole life," Eastman said. On Oct. 7, 2023, the Hamas attack and the start of Israel's response changed life across the region. "My friends, my teammates have lost people. One of my best friends named Nadaf, his older brother was killed on Oct. 7," Andron said. "We've lost four guys, four tackle players — not national team players, but guys that we knew in our community and so those first weeks were spent mourning," Leibowitz said. Football in Israel stopped for seven months. Around 2,000 players, coaches and referees fought to return. Some of the current players may fight on the frontlines with the IDF in the future. "Football is this bonder, it's a unifier. It's a way to bring people together, bring nations together. It's a way to heal," Eastman said. For Andron, playing against Team USA is an opportunity to compete, learn and prepare for the ultimate Olympic goal. "Everybody that's playing flag football in Israel now, we're going towards that. We're going to be there and we're going to represent with everything we've got and we're going to show the world who we are," Andron said. The public is welcome to the USA versus Israel Flag Football Scrimmage on Thursday at 4:30 p.m. Tickets are free, but must be reserved online .
