Unjust Enrichment & the Politics of Personal Destruction

On Tuesday an article appeared in National Law Journal about the suit filed by Jane Daniel and Mt. Ivy Press seeking to overturn the judgment against her. This has been such a long and difficult legal battle that it astonishes me that she can continue to fight but this time she is fighting for her home and has the advantage of knowing that the entire ordeal she has been through was all based on fraud.

Imagine that! Ten years of lawyers and court and being slimed all over the news. Ten years of seeing your entire family devastated by the egregious and unwarranted claims against you. Ten years in which she saw both of her parents die never knowing what was going to happen to their daughter. Both her father and her daughter were drawn into the battle when the lawyers on Defonseca-Lee’s side went after them claiming they were hiding funds --- you know those mysterious funds that Daniel is supposed to have swindled. And all of it --- all the misery and lies and pain and slander was all based on lies. All based on Defonseca’s allegation that she was Jewish and a victim of the Holocaust when she was actually a little Catholic girl attending school in Belgium and living with her grandfather. All lies. All lies.

In the article Lee’s attorney Frank Frisoli continued his character assassination of Daniel --- something he has honed and perfected for years --- reiterating his allegations that she defrauded Defonseca and Lee and engaged in fraudulent business practices. Daniel’s attorney, Gloucester’s Joseph M. Orlando countered by saying once the judgment is vacated all the accounts will be available for examination. The court can peruse them at will and make their own determination.

One of the bizarre aspects of this case is that during the course of the trial no accountant was called in to do a thorough examination of the books. All the testimony about fraud was supplied by Defonseca and we have seen how reliable her word is. Lee, who started the legal firestorm, by suing Mt. Ivy because her name wasn’t going to be on the cover of the book, claims she has never received any funds from the judgment. All these claims and counterclaims about money need to be examined and, as Justice Brandies always said, held up to the light for disinfecting.

In law there is a term “unjust enrichment”. It is an interesting term. What it means is that you cannot profit from unjust acts --- this most certainly includes fraud. Defonseca’s acts of fraud seem endless at the moment. She lied about her history to concoct her entire Holocaust-survivor story. She was speaking at synagogues and telling that fraudulent story when Daniel met her but now Defonseca claims that she never wanted to write the book --- that Jane made her do it. Defonseca represented herself in court in the beginning and, as such, acted as an officer of the court. Because her entire argument was based on fraud she not only committed perjury right from the beginning but, as an officer of the court, also committed fraud on the court (as alleged in the complaint). Consequently, any money that Lee received as a result of the judgments ought to qualify as unjust enrichment --- money obtained as the result of lies, fraud, and perjury. Though she may not have been directly at fault, she still cannot profit from the judgment for money other than what may have been owed to her for services. Any money Defonseca received goes well beyond unjust enrichment.

We can only hope that the court will take note of that this time around and ask to see the books --- all the books, Daniel’s, Mt. Ivy’s, Defonseca’s, Lee’s, etc. If money cannot be accounted for then that needs to be addressed. If Defonseca and Lee profited because of Defonseca’s fraud and perjury that also needs to be addressed.

There is also the issue of all the funds Defonseca garnered from people who wanted to support the poor Holocaust-survivor that she claimed to be. Whether it was for speaker’s fees or just support from well-meaning individual, Defonseca obtained them by presenting herself as a Holocaust survivor and using that as a means of garnering sympathy. I can well understand that the people who were victims of her fraudulent behavior now feel embarrassed and want nothing to do with the entire situation figuring the money is gone and they were duped. We can only hope that some people within that community and the Jewish community at large will have the courage to come forth and say that this is wrong. Defonseca cannot get away with what she got away with. It is unacceptable and amends need to be made.

One of the worst thing about the type of character assassination that people like Frisloi engage in is that it intimidates good and righteous people who might want to speak up and help right a wrong but are fearful of doing because they don’t want to be the next victim of the slime machine. It was President Clinton, I believe, who coined the term “politics of personal destruction”. These days everyone with a television or who reads a newspaper has seen how that works. Character assassination has become accepted and it scares the b’jesus out of good people. People like Frisoli know that.

So another legal battle begins. Will the dark forces of fraud, perjury and character assassination prevail and preserve the unjust enrichment that has been obtained? Or will the courts decide that some sunlight --- and a good accountant --- are what this case needs?

Thanks for reading.