By: Veronica Kordmany

Jury selection began on Monday for the lawsuit filed against former lawyer Michael Avenatti, who is being tried for conspiracy to commit extortion against multinational, multibillion-dollar corporation, Nike. Avenatti is facing charges after he threatened Nike lawyers, to take allegations of corruption public – unless they paid him millions in return for his silent investigation, in March 2019. At the time, Michael was representing youth basketball coach Gary Franklin, who claimed to have the inside scoop on backroom practices that the company was concealing from the public record.

The 48-year old is sticking to his claim of innocence, while awaiting trial at the infamous Metropolitan Correctional Center, former jailhouse of Jeffrey Epstein and Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman. He was formerly out on bail, until it was revoked by a judge in January 2020, for violating the terms of his release after he allegedly laundered money.

The investigation into Michael Avenatti shows that he was up to his neck in debt. Prosecutors believe the incident with Nike was an opportunity for the lawyer to shave off a little bit of the $15 million amount he owed. Avenatti told reporters, “Any claim that I had $15 million in debt at the time of my arrest is bogus and absurd,” he said. “I look forward to the trial in this case at which time I will be fully exonerated and the truth will finally be known.”

Prosecutors conducted the investigation in order to determine the motive for the former lawyer’s actions, as well as his innate desperation for money. What the investigation proved is that Michael’s debts range from his purchases of three cars – a race car, a Ferrari, and a Porsche – to people in his life, such as his former wives, law partner, and even celebrity lawyer, Mark Geragos, prosecutors wrote in court papers dated December 2019. Avenatti’s lawyer, Scott Srebnick, countered that the information holds no relevance, and would only force the jury to “…engage in class-based bias regarding the defendant’s wealth.”

What put him on the map is one of his celebrity clients: a porn star who goes by the stage name ‘Stormy Daniels’, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, who he represented in her lawsuit against President Donald Trump. Clifford hired Avenatti to invalidate her non-disclosure agreement with the President, after she allegedly had an affair with Trump. Since his arrest, Daniels has dropped the lawsuit and fired her lawyer.

Avenatti faces up to 20 years in prison if found guilty. He is also currently wanted in New York and California for stealing settlements from clients such as Daniels.

By Pat Savage

American jurisprudence guarantees a man the right to face his accusers. Still, they usually don’t come half a dozen at a time.

Six women are set in the process of testifying against disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein, who faces charges of sexually assaulting two of them.

The most spectacular testimony figures to come from Sopranos actress Annabella Sciorra, who has already said publicly that Weinstein forcibly raped her in 2003. another has accused Weinstein of forcibly performing oral sex on her in 2006. Another of the women who will testify is accusing Weinstein of sliding his hand into her vagina during a business meeting. Yet another claims he put his hands on her in the hotel room and masturbated in front of her.

All of the women will be testifying against Weinstein at his trial in state Supreme Court in Manhattan, one of the most sensational trials in recent memory period in all, nearly 100 women have accused Weinstein of a variety of sexual misconduct’s such as rape, unwanted touching comma and sexual harassment. Indeed, the first of the accusations was what sparked what has come to be known as the #metoo era.

In her opening remarks last week, prosecutor Meghan Hast said that Weinstein, 67, used “his power and prestige in the entertainment industry to ensure their silence.”

The criminal indictment charges Weinstein “with sexually assaulting two of the women, but the remaining four will testify about their encounters with him to show a pattern of abuse. Mr. Weinstein is accused of five felony counts, including rape and predatory sexual assault. He faces life in prison if the jury of seven men and five women convict him of the last charge,” reported the New York Times. “The prosecution’s case turns on whether jurors believe the women’s testimony. Prosecutors have no physical evidence to support their accounts.”

Former production assistant Mimi Haleyi has said that Weinstein forcibly performed oral sex on her in his New York City. “The 42-year-old Haleyi, whose legal name is Miriam Haley, is the first of the two women whose accusations are at the heart of the charges against Weinstein to take the stand at the closely watched #MeToo-era trial, which is in its fourth day of testimony,” ABC News noted.

“At some point, he came towards me and lunged at me, trying to kiss me,” she told the jurors. “I got up from the sofa and I said, ‘Oh no.’ I kind of rejected him and pushed him away and he just came back and kept kissing me and fondling me. I got up and tried to walk away from him but he pulled me towards him. He was kind of walking toward me and I was walking backwards trying to get away. I walked backwards. … I was backed into a bedroom that was on the corner of that open space area, through the door. I walked backwards because he was pushing me with his body until I got to the bed and I fell backwards onto the bed and I tried to get up and he pushed me down.”

By: Jared Evan

While Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have been making headlines the last few weeks, news about the mysterious death of notorious pedophile Jeffrey Epstein and his equally enigmatic mistress Ghislaine Maxwell seems to have disappeared.

Last week The Sun UK reported that a top pathologist has claimed there is evidence that Epstein was probably murdered and did not hang himself in his prison cell, as was originally reported in August.

New York City’s former chief medical examiner Dr Michael Baden points to burst capillaries in the fiend’s eyes as a big clue to him being manually strangled.

“In a hanging, the arteries and the blood vessels, the veins are both clogged off and the person is pale. The face is pale,” Dr Baden declared on the Dr. Oz program. Baden is convinced Epstein was murdered.

Meanwhile, apparently Prince Andrew was so close to pedophile extraordinaire Jeffrey Epstein, the N.Y Post reported that he would allow Epstein’s madam Ghislaine Maxwell to secretly come to Buckingham Palace up to four times a day, his former police protection officer claimed.

“We’ve got a guest coming for Andrew but the name is not to be entered in the book,” Paul Page, a former London Cop claims he was told by the Palace’s property managers the first time he saw Maxwell visit in 2001.

“Half an hour after that, me and my colleague walked through the garden to go back to the police lodge and he was having a picnic with her by the summer house, opposite the Queen’s bedroom window,” claimed the ex-cop.

“One of my colleagues saw her come in and out the Palace four times in one day.”, the officer who was Andrew’s royal protection officer from 1998 to 2004 told British media.

Maxwell has been accused in numerous court filings of procuring young girls for Epstein, her ex. IT has long been rumored she is the center of the entire Epstein investigation. Essentially a high-level madam, involved with allegedly trafficking sex minors was a regular at Buckingham Palace.

Virginia Giuffre has accused Maxwell of trafficking her to Prince Andrew.

Maxwell has tried very hard to remain low profile and out of the news even as she is involved with several lawsuits.

Maxwell’s team of lawyers recently appeared before Judge Loretta Preska regarding the defamation case of accuser Virginia Giuffre, who claims she was recruited by Maxwell to be Epstein’s sex slave and trafficked to Prince Andrew and other high-profile men. Andrew denies the allegations, TJV previously reported.

Giuffre is suing Maxwell for defamation after being called a liar, by the glorified pimp.

“If his legal team thought there was any possibility of indictments coming his way, they’d have shut the idea of doing the TV interview down,” officer Page told the Sunday Mirror. “So, he must have had some guarantees that this isn’t going anywhere to publicly speak.”

He was referring to an interview with Andrew on the BBC where he spoke fondly of Maxwell.

By: Tamika Warren

The animal accused of being the machete-wielding so-called Hanukkah stabber, Grafton Thomas, is too nuts to stand trial, according to a psychiatrist.

The trial involves federal hate crime charges for allegedly stabbing five religious Jews last month.

The lawyer representing Thomas, Michael Sussman, had requested a competency evaluation for his client, he said yesterday in a prepared statement.

The alleged attacker, 37, stands accused of using an 18-inch machete to carry out the horrifying attack. He pleaded not guilty to 10-hate crime charges. One of the victims, 72-year-old Josef Neumann, is still in a coma, having suffered injuries including a fractured skull and other injuries.

Thomas “has also pleaded not guilty to state charges, including attempted murder, stemming the same attack,” reported the New York Post. “At his arraignment for those charges, prosecutors argued he was mentally fit to stand trial for the “deliberate and intentional” crime. Thomas is being held without bail in federal custody.”

Sussman’s prepared statement noted that in Dr. Andrew Levin’s judgment Thomas “was not competent to stand trial… “He has no history of like violent acts and no convictions for any crime. He has no known history of anti-Semitism and was raised in a home which embraced and respected all religions and races. He is not a member of any hate groups.”

The attorney, along with Thomas’ mother, “have maintained that his mental illness and going without his medication triggered the vicious attack that left six Hasidic Jews injured, including 72-year-old Josef Neumann, who remains in a coma with a fractured skull. They claimed Thomas, 37, had no violent tendencies — despite one arrest on a charge of assaulting a police officer — nor was he anti-Semitic,” according to recordonline.com.

According to Sussman’s statement, Thomas, has been through a period of mental decline for more than a decade, and was on no fewer than three meds to manage both depression and psychosis. He was, in fact, placed in a hospital for nearly a week back in April for reasons having to do with his mental health.

Rev. Wendy Paige, the pastor of Harriman United Methodist Church, called the alleged machete-swinging maniac a “calm, caring person” and an introvert who clearly struggled with mental problems that sometimes caused him to have trouble finishing his sentences, according to lohud.com. She added, “He’s always been a gentle giant with mental illness.”

Sussman tried to divert attention from his client by warning against stigmatizing mental illness. “There are plenty of people whose mental illness is controlled by medication, and they’re not dangerous in this way and they don’t act out in this way.”

By Andy B. Mayfair

Mark Weissman may well be a tzaddik – just ask his friends, and they will tell you the by-now famous stories about his generosity and kindness. But he is in trouble with the law, a fact that has left many scratching their heads.

The resident of the Five Towns, hailed by many as an exemplar, is scheduled to be sentenced in two days after having pleaded guilty to helping a longtime friend attempt to extort $6 million from a third man who has been described in the press as “a mastermind behind the biggest penny-stock fraud ever orchestrated in New York.”

Friends and relatives “are horrified that Weissman got sucked into a den of thieves. But some say they feared his strong desire to help others would get him into trouble,” Crain’s New York reported. “When I first heard about the case against him, I thought to myself, Well this time he overdid his kindness and got himself in a lot of hot water,” Moshe Deutsch, who has known Weissman for more than 30 years, told a judge.”

It was last June when Weissman pleaded guilty in federal court to conspiring to obstruct an official proceeding. He had, according to Long Island Business News, “participated in a scheme to hinder another person’s court-ordered obligation to pay millions of dollars in restitution to victims of a securities fraud case, according the U.S. Justice Department.”

Following his plea, Weissman was held “responsible for attempting to impede the execution of a restitution judgment that was to be paid to victims of a massive fraud,” U.S. Attorney Richard Donoghue said in a statement.

“Records show that two people had pleaded guilty in federal court in Brooklyn to securities fraud, conspiracy to commit securities fraud and money-laundering conspiracy. When sentenced in 2014, the individuals, who were not named by the Justice Department, were ordered to pay $12.7 million in restitution to the victims, officials said,” LIBN reported.

Weissman was charged in the plot with Andrew Tepfer, who according to Newsday pleaded guilty to securities charges involving a company called Spongetech in 2012, and was liable for $12.7 million in restitution as part of his sentence. Tepfer has pleaded not guilty.

“With today’s guilty plea, Weissman has been held responsible for attempting to impede the execution of a restitution judgment that was to be paid to victims of a massive fraud,” said Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Richard Donoghue.

By: Ricardo Kotkin

Deaths continue to climb in China as the new coronavirus that began in the Chinese city of Wuhan has already killed 81 people in China, as of press according to the N.Y Times

Infections have been confirmed in many other countries.

But of the nearly 3,000 people who have so far contracted the virus, the vast majority live in China, the Times reported.

Locally, it was reported by the NY Post: “Three possible coronavirus cases in New York were proven to be negative by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, while results on four others are pending”

“While experts still believe the risk of catching this novel coronavirus is currently low in New York, I want all New Yorkers to know we are prepared and continue working closely with the CDC, the World Health Organization, our local and federal government partners, and New York’s health care providers to ensure we stay ahead of this situation,” Cuomo said in a statement.

The N.Y Times reported: “Thailand and Hong Kong have each reported eight cases of infection; the United States, Taiwan, Australia and Macau have five each; Singapore, Japan, South Korea and Malaysia each have reported four; France has three; Canada and Vietnam have two, and Nepal has one”

These numbers and data will constantly change.

Meanwhile, Zero Hedge reported “US stocks are deep in the red Monday morning, on track for their worst day in four months, thanks to the fact that the market and the world realized over the weekend that the extremely infectious novel coronavirus has overwhelmed China’s capacity to contain it”

President Trump tweeted shortly after the market opened: “We are in very close communication with China concerning the virus. Very few cases reported in USA, but strongly on watch. We have offered China and President Xi any help that is necessary. Our experts are extraordinary!”

Zero Hedge News blog also reported: “Dr. Nancy Messonnier, the Director of the Center for the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases (NCIRD), spoke on behalf of the CDC. During the press conference, she said that the US had identified 110 people who are under observation and being tested for the virus. While 5 cases have already been identified in the US, another 32 have definitively tested negative.

Though a vaccine remains elusive, the Messonnier said the CDC had developed a diagnostic test that can quickly confirm cases of the virus. So far, CDC researchers have seen no signs of “mutation” in the virus. If the virus does mutate, as Chinese scientists suggested it might, that could create problems for those trying to develop the exam. On Friday, a “blueprint” for the test was uploaded and shared with the world. All governments can now follow this blueprint to develop their own tests

The CDC has also uploaded the entire genome of the virus from the first two cases. From what the CDC can tell so far, the virus doesn’t appear to be “mutating”, as some Chinese officials had suggested”

By: David Ben Hooren

A blaze has laid waste to a new building that is part of a Fallsburg Yeshiva girls school.

An emergency fund has been launched to help rebuild the edifice.

Bnos Devorah Raizel Elementary School was, according to Vos Iz Neias, a structure that “represented dreams and aspirations. The dreams of its founders and the aspirations of its young students.”

The school had long ago outgrown its facilities on Reb Chiya Way on the campus of Yeshiva Gedolah Zichron Moshe of Fallsburg. It was two years ago that construction began on a new school building situated on Laurel Park Road, across the street from the school’s current trailers and bungalows.

The design would have seen the building serve as home for nearly 200 students. The project was nearing its end, and plans were already been drawn up for a celebration of its opening.

“And then the unthinkable happened,” noted Vos Iz Neias. “On the morning of Thursday, January 23, the dreams of a new building went up in smoke – very literally. A massive blaze broke out at the construction site of Bnos Devorah Raizel’s building, completely destroying the structure, leaving behind nothing more than a pile of rubble.” The few hundred students of the school have been located in temporary trailers.

The Jewish community, however, is always resilient. Less than a day after the devastating blaze, groups got together to launch a campaign aimed at raising money to restore what had been destroyed period school officials promised to rebuild and carry on.

Bnos Devorah Raizel, the Bais Yaakov of the Fallsburg Yeshiva community, is named for Mrs. Devorah Raizel (Debbie) Shick a”h bas Reb Avrohom Yosef and Pessia Frankel, the school is a home away from home for its many students. The school started in a small house left from the original Laurel Park Hotel and grew from classes of four students to classes of 25 and now close to 200 girls.

Rav Elya Ber Wachtfogel, rosh yeshiva of Yeshiva Gedolah of South Fallsburg, drafted a letter in which he asks Jews around the world to take part in assisting the school recoup its losses. Reimbursement via an insurance policy will not come close to covering the cost of rebuilding, he said. He called it absolutely vital to raise the money from among the Jewish community so that education of young Jews can continue.

“The fire will not get us down,” said Rav Ephraim Sher, Nosi of the Fallsburg Yeshiva, shortly after the blaze. “With Hashem’s help, we have started rebuilding today.” In fact, the school has established a goal of raising $500,000 in order to ensure the construction of a building for Bnos Devorah Raizel l’sheim ul’tiferes.

Those who wish to participate in the emergency campaign are invited to go to: https://www.rayze.it/rebuildfallsburg/ or call 845-767-8100.

By: Jared Evan

Late last year a Queens Council member asked the Department of Justice to investigate “deep-rooted fraud” in NYC schools, and the FBI has begun looking into this issue.

“Due to the apparent pattern of conspiracy to cover up such deep-rooted fraud within the DOE that has likely been going on for many years now, I have been advised that this could constitute a federal RICO investigation,” Council member Robert Holden’s wrote in an Oct. 25 letter to US Attorneys Geoffrey Berman in Manhattan and Richard Donoghue in Brooklyn, the N.Y Post reported.

The scandal seems to go back to de Blasio appointee and “social justice warrior” Chancellor Richard Carranza. It was discovered that schools were passing almost every student in math and English, even though they are showing low proficiency.

Carranza made news over the last several years for his race based educational agenda, which did away with many gifted programs for students, because of the gifted programs racial makeup. This topic has been written and covered extensively over several years, outraging parents all over New York City.

Last year Carranza was under fire after MS 158 in Bayside became a flashpoint after the brutal videotaped cafeteria beating of a student and a classroom sexual assault in December.

Carranza has had very bizarre policies against student discipline and suspending students, again his reasoning is race based. Parents of MS 158 students were outraged the school did nothing after the violence and sexual assaults.

In other words, Carranza’s policies have created chaos in public schools, with educators afraid to discipline students who are black or Hispanic, because of Carranza’s disastrous policies.

“To me, that suggests that standards have been lowered in the classrooms, and individual school administrations may even be passing students that haven’t performed well or learned much of anything,” wrote Holden, a former CUNY professor in his letter to US attorneys

“The Chancellor has completely ignored my concerns thus far,” he wrote.

The N.Y Post reported: “Holden sent a letter in November to Donoghue in Brooklyn and US Attorney Geoffrey Berman in Manhattan, saying “an apparent pattern of conspiracy to cover up” grade-fixing, cheating and other wrongdoing might warrant an investigation under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), which covers criminal enterprises.”

According to Holden: teachers say administrators encouraged cheating on exams, enforced a “no-fail policy,” and retaliated against staffers who didn’t go along with it.

Last year it was reported that The Special Commissioner of Investigation (SCI) for city schools were sitting on nine cases of waste, fraud and corruption involving the upper echelons of City Hall and the Department of Education.

Investigations against Carranza and de Blasio’s wife were completely ignored.

A whistleblower letter stated: “ “While SCI is doing more work, the quality of the cases being pursued is zero-to-none, and cases that are systematic in nature or that do show major fraud can’t be worked on because of a lack of resources or time,” the letter says.

It also complains that SCI lawyers “have taken up to 300 days or more” to review and close cases — leaving DOE employees in limbo even if accusations are unsubstantiated.

“Almost 8 years of New York City under de Blasio, we have witnessed more corruption, failure and wasted money than NYC has ever seen, yet the local media barely covers it. The NYC Democrats operate like the mafia”, Anthony Logan, a political analyst casually told TJV.

By: Ilana Siyance

Rezoning for the SoHo or NoHo neighborhoods may remain an aloof idea.

On Friday, Mayor Bill de Blasio made a point of clarifying that the proposed zoning change to allow the construction of new housing in two of the Big Apple’s priciest neighborhoods is still far off. “Can we put together the support to get something like [SoHo rezoning] done?” the mayor said. “I’m not sure of that at this point.”

As reported by Crain’s NY, activists, including “yes in my backyard”, have been pushing for new zoning which would allow higher housing density in SoHo. When questioned about it, Mayor de Blasio told WNYC’s Brian Lehrer on the NY public radio show that he and his administration are putting their emphasis in “the places we are convinced we can get something done.”

Housing advocates, including Open New York and the Housing Rights Initiative, have been trying to press de Blasio to work to rezone SoHo to enable more affordable housing to be built. Other NYC rezoning efforts headed by the mayor seem to be unsuccessful due to fierce neighborhood opposition. This month rezoning efforts for Bushwick, Brooklyn crumbled after four years of planning. The Inwood rezoning plans are also on hold as of December, as per the order of a judge.

Supporters admit that SoHo is both richer and has more of a white population than any neighborhood the de Blasio administration has tried to rezone. Getting approval for affordable housing in such a wealthy neighborhood will undeniably be more of a challenge.

The mayor said “of course” the city wants affordable housing in neighborhoods of all income levels. “If the question is Do we need more affordable housing in areas of the city that are privileged … of course the answer is yes,” de Blasio said. But he conceded that residents there will resist the rezoning and wish to preserve the historical nature of the SoHo neighborhood.

The city never committed to rezoning in the neighborhood, but for over a year now they have been working toward some kind of land-use changes there. Towards the end of 2019, the city released a report entitled Envision SoHo/NoHo, which touched upon potential zoning changes for SoHo, along with neighboring NoHo, recommending that city planners explore areas in the neighborhood where density could be increased. This month, when the findings of the report were discussed with Manhattan’s Community Board, residents were quick to stand up against allowing higher housing density.

Other than the Mayor’s aforementioned comments, the city’s Planning Department has not yet responded or declared its decision about whether or not it would be moving forward with any zoning change for SoHo.

By Howard M. Riell

Michael Bloomberg wants Jewish votes and donations, and so he has launched

United for Mike, which targets Jews.

On Sunday, his team officially introduced the program at the Aventura Turnberry Jewish Center in Miami. Its director will be author Abigail Pogrebin.

Many have argued that the Democratic approach of targeting individual demographic groups is divisive, but Bloomberg apparently knows he must work within the Democratic template. He hasn’t generated a lot of enthusiasm.

As The Economist noted dryly: “Mr Bloomberg has run for office as a Republican, as an independent and now as a Democrat. In a country where voters often claim to want bipartisanship but usually vote as if the other lot are rogues, this is risky. Mr Bloomberg has pitched himself as a counter-weight to left-wingers such as Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, who he says are “not well-positioned” to defeat President Donald Trump. He has outlined an ambitious, leftish policy agenda while disavowing Medicare for All, the signature health-care proposal on the left of the party. Mr Bloomberg might yet become the Democrats’ pick for the White House, but the odds are slim, and his campaign will first have to overcome a problem: currently voters dislike him more than any of the other serious candidates running for president. He is a lot more unpopular than Mr Trump.”

Even the left-leaning publication The Hill doesn’t think much of his candidacy. As they reported recently, “For most Democrats, rightly fixated on beating Donald Trump, Michael Bloomberg’s campaign for President is about the last thing they need. The bitter irony is that Bloomberg, a mega-billionaire, lifelong Republican, and New York conservative, has no chance of actually winning this year’s populist-leaning Democratic nomination himself. But his candidacy holds a host of dangers for Democrats and could complicate their efforts to defeat Trump.”

Bloomberg grew up in Medford, Massachusetts and attended Johns Hopkins University and Harvard Business School. He began his career at the securities brokerage Salomon Brothers, before forming his own company in 1981 spending the next twenty years as its chairman and CEO, according to Wikipedia. “He is the co-founder, CEO, and majority owner of Bloomberg L.P., a global financial services, software and mass media company that bears his name, and is known for its Bloomberg Terminal, a computer software system providing financial data widely used in the global financial services industry. As of November 2019, this made him the 9th richest person in the United States and the 14th richest person in the world; his net worth was estimated at $58 billion. Since signing The Giving Pledge whereby billionaires

By: Vincent Moriarty

Fairway Market has reportedly filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection for the second time in under four years.

Published reports also maintain that the company’s executives intend to sell as many as five of its retail locations, with more among the remaining nine stores to come.

In its Thursday court filing, Manhattan-based Fairway Group Holdings Corp. “said it has entered into a so-called “stalking horse” agreement to sell up to five of its New York City stores and a distribution center to Village Super Market Inc. for about $70 million,” reported newsday.com. “A stalking horse agreement represents an opening bid; other entities may offer higher prices for the assets.”

For its part, the company has said that stalking horse asset purchase agreement with Village Super Market, Inc. (EA) to sell up to 5 New York City Fairway stores also includes its Distribution Center, all for approximately $70 million.

In addition, the company will execute a Court supervised sale process to continue to negotiate for the sale of its remaining store locations, it said in a press release.

“An Ad Hoc Group of the Company’s senior lenders are supportive of the sale process and have agreed to provide the Company with up to $25 million in debtor in possession financing,” the release said. “Fairway Market will continue to conduct business and serve customers at its stores across the tri-state area and expects no interruption in service during the Court-supervised process. Fairway Market stores will continue to offer a complete range of high quality, specialty food products, and all existing customer promotional and loyalty programs will stay in place during this process.”

“We would like to extend gratitude to our employees, vendors, distributors and customers for their support, dedication and loyalty over the years. It has always been Fairway’s priority to ensure our patrons are provided with the most optimal grocery experience, with the freshest foods and best quality products, and our employees feel appreciated,” said Abel Porter, Chief Executive Officer at Fairway Market, in the statement posted on its web site. “After careful consideration of all alternatives, we have concluded that a Court-supervised sale process is the best way to meet our objectives of preserving as many jobs as possible, maximizing value for our stakeholders, and positioning Fairway for long term success under new ownership.”

Village Super Market, Inc. operates a chain of supermarkets and specialty markets in the Northeast under the ShopRite and Gourmet Garage banners. “Perry and Nick Sumas opened the first Village Market in 1937, and our family continues to believe deeply in the importance of neighborhood grocery stores. We appreciate that Fairway’s loyal customers are concerned about the future, and if we are successful in our bid, we are committed to keeping Fairway, including its name, unique product selection and value, a part of this community,” said Robert Sumas, CEO of Village Super Market, Inc.

Fairway Market has been known as a “unique food retailer offering customers a differentiated one-stop shopping experience as “The Place To Go Fooding,” the company said. “Fairway has established itself as a leading food retail destination in the Greater New York City metropolitan area, recently expanding with the opening of The Cooking Place in June 2019, a cooking school that brings the same passion and philosophy about fooding to its customers. Fairway Market offers an extensive selection of fresh, natural and organic products, prepared foods and hard-to-find specialty and gourmet offerings, along with a full assortment of conventional groceries.”