Menachem ("Max") Stark (July 15, 1974 – January 3, 2014) was an American real estate developer whose badly burned body was found smoldering in a dumpster outside a gas station in Great Neck, New York.
The cousins Erskine Felix, Kendel Felix, Kendall Felix, and Irvine Henry were arrested and eventually convicted of the crime. Erskine worked for Stark, a prominent member of the Satmar Hasidic community in the Williamsburg neighborhood of New York City. Claiming that Stark owed him money, Erskine recruited his cousins to help in a botched robbery of Stark that instead turned into a homicide.
The New York Post featured a front page image of Stark with the headline, "Who Didn't Want Him Dead?". The headline, referring to the notion that Stark had acquired a number of enemies during the course of his real estate dealings, sparked condemnation from local officials for showing insensitivity towards the victim, and for seeming to condone crime.
Background
Menachem Stark was a prominent member of the Satmar Hasidic community of Williamsburg, a neighborhood of New York City. He was a real estate developer.
Public records showed that Stark and his business partner, Israel Perlmutter, had some business troubles, dating back to the 2007–2009 recession, including a $29 million loan default resulting in a 2009 bankruptcy and a lawsuit in 2011, and an unrelated $2.9 million loan default that led to a $4 million judgement in 2012. The media also reported on a long list of building violations in properties owned by Stark and his partners. Tenants had described revolting conditions in Stark-owned residential buildings for many years, although shortly after Stark's death, glowing reviews of his properties began to appear on social media sites.
Among Stark and Perlmutter's creditors was the Broadway Bank of Chicago, notable for its loans to organized crime figures, such as convicted bookmaker Michael "Jaws" Giorango. Stark and Perlmutter defaulted on a $1.5 million loan from the bank, part of the $104 million in loan defaults that contributed to the bank's demise.
Bank accounts belonging to Southside LLC (Stark and Perlmutter's corporation) appear to have been tampered with to conceal a diversion of funds. According to court filings, $3.6 million was found to be missing from accounts maintained by Southside LLC. Unauthorized withdrawals had been made in the second half of 2013.
Jonathan Flaxer, a trustee appointed by the bankruptcy court to oversee the Southside LLC case, said that Stark had "obtained cashier's checks made out to a multitude of individuals, entities, and law firms to pay for personal debts or for use in other real estate transactions". According to the Daily News, the checks were marked "customer withdrawal". The Daily News said that court records show that, in the month before Stark was murdered, five "customer withdrawals" were taken out from the account, totaling $267,101.
According to court records, a rent security account at one of Southside LLC's businesses contained only $3,500, when it should have in excess of $200,000 on deposit. The account contained rents collected from the company's buildings, which the company continued to manage as its bankruptcy was being processed.
Flaxer said he would call Stark's widow and his partner Perlmutter to testify in the case. Perlmutter, via his attorney, said he would use his Fifth Amendment right to avoid self-incrimination if he is questioned about the missing money.
Perlmutter also reportedly told police that the pair owed about $1 million to a loan shark or a Russian businessman.
In the weeks before his death, Stark reportedly ended his conversations with the phrase "Please pray for me". He would ask the person to whom he was speaking to invoke his name and his mother's name, a sign in Orthodox Judaism of someone facing a life-threatening situation.
Stark died without a will.
Incident
Stark exited his office located at 331 Rutledge Street in Williamsburg on January 2, 2014, at around 11:45 pm into a heavy blizzard. A surveillance camera positioned near the office captured images of Stark struggling with two attackers for nearly five minutes, before being forced into a silver Dodge Caravan in an intended robbery. Broken handcuffs and plastic restraining tape were later found on the sidewalk. His badly burned body was found the next day smoldering in a dumpster outside a Getty gas station on Cutter Mill Road in Great Neck, New York.