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UNITED STALES COURT OF APPEALS
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CLERK FOR THE El FVENTH CIRCUIT
JUL 3 1 2009
Appeal No. 08-11034-C
nANTA G°4•
STEPHAN JAY LAWRENCE

Appellant,

vs.

ALAN GOLDBERG, ET AL

Appellees.

APPEAL FROM AN ORDER

OF THE UNITED STALES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF FLORIDA

Case No. 06-21952-CIV-GOLD

PETITION FOR REHEARING

Stephan J. Lawrence, pro se

19500 Turnberry Way # 23A
Aventura, FL 33180
(754) 204-3009
Lawrence v. Goldberg et al, Case No. 08-11034-C

CERTIFICATE OF INTERESTED PERSONS AND

CORPORATE DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

1. Alan, S., U.S. District Court, Southern District of Florida.

2. Turnoff, William C., U.S. District Court, Southern District of Florida

(Magistrate Judge).
3. Falk, Bennett, Esq., counsel for Bear Stearns & Co., Daniel Taub, Mark
Lehman.

4. Bender, Noah, Esq., counsel for Berger Singerman P.A., Paul Singerman,
Paul Avron, James Fierberg

5. Budwick, Michael Esq., counsel for Michael Budwick and Meland Russin &
Budwick.

6. Tillinghast, Edward, III, Esq., counsel for Edward Tillinghast, III, Esq.

7. Cohen, Mark, counsel for Mark Cohen, Mark Cohen P.A.

8. Avron, Paul A. Esq., counsel for Alan L. Goldberg and Crisis Management.

9. Windt, Heather Esq., counsel for Juval Aviv and Interfor, Inc..

10. Rosenthal, Stephen, Esq., counsel for Juval Aviv and Interfor, Inc..

11. Juval Aviv and Interfor, Inc.

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 TABLE OF CONTENTS

TABLE OF CONTENTS ........................................................................................... i

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES ...................................................................................... ii
PETITION FOR REHEARING .................................................................................1
ARGUMENT .............................................................................................................1
CONCLUSION ........................................................................................................11
CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE ................................................................................12

i
 TABLE OF AUTHORITIES

Cases
In re Brown, 303 F.3d 1261, 1268 n.9 (11th Cir 2002) ..............................................1
Justice Cometh, Ltd. v. Lambert, 426 F.3d 1342 (11th Cir. 2005) ............................6
Northern Pipeline Constr. Co. v. Marathon Pipe Line Co., 458 U.S. 50 (1982) ......6

Statutes
11 U.S.C. § 157 ..........................................................................................................6
11 U.S.C. § 727 ....................................................................................................9, 10
28 U.S.C. § 1334(b) ...................................................................................................6

ii
 PETITION FOR REHEARING

This petition is filed to call the Court’s attention to errors of fact and law that

argue for reevaluation of the Court’s opinion.

ARGUMENT

The factual background in the Court’s order (“Order”)1 contains relevant errors

that, when applied to the law in this Circuit and Supreme Court precedent, call for

reevaluation of the Order.

In late 1996, pre-bankruptcy filing, in Pompano Windy City Partners v. Bear

Stearns & Co., Case No. 93-6489-CIV-KING, U.S. Federal District Judge Hon. James

Lawrence King adopted the unobjected to Report & Recommendation of U.S.

Magistrate Judge William C. Turnoff and ruled the assets used to settle the Lawrence

Family Intervivos Trust in 1991 were not Lawrence’s assets, but instead were the assets

of the Trust itself, a separate entity that had to be impleaded in any challenge to the

Trust affecting its assets.2 3. Critically, Judge King denied Bear Stearns & Co., Inc.’s

1
Addendum A.
2
This significant ruling was not only consistent with Florida law, but also this
Court’s opinion in In re Brown, 303 F.3d 1261, 1268 n.9 (11th Cir 2002), where the
Court, referring specifically to the Lawrence trust in question, found that a
bankruptcy trustee, if he pursues a trust, can only invalidate a spendthrift clause

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(“BS&C”) request to order Lawrence to turn over the trust assets and to hold Lawrence

in contempt to enforce turnover [Pompano DE 126, 186] [R-69 at ¶¶24-25]. Only then

did BS&C correct their fatal error and implead the trust; but this was after the statute of

limitations to avoid the 1991 trust settlement had expired. BS&C, recognizing their

fatal errors, never pursued their lawsuit after Lawrence lost his discharge.

However, after Lawrence’s lost his discharge (which ended the automatic

bankruptcy stay), BS&C assembled its “black ops” team. The team was headed by

Defendant Juval Aviv, a self-promoted Israeli “assassin” who Israeli and U.S.

Government officials have labeled a “fabricator,” and who had been indicted before

BS&C hired him4 5 6

. The Aviv/BS&C “team” included, but was not limited to,

based on “control,” but not the trust itself, and that settlement funds of a trust
become assets of the trust, not the debtor-transferee, as though a transfer was made
to a third party.
3
Because Lawrence had made full disclosure of his assets, and of the 1991 Trust,
during his arbitration with BS&C and later when BS&C belatedly sought discovery
on their 1993 judgment, the case narrowed down to if a) turnover of the trust
settlement funds could be ordered against Lawrence (and not the trust, which BS&C
neglected to implead); b) Lawrence could be held in contempt to enforce that
turnover.
4
In addition to his indictment and the public denunciations by the Israeli and U.S.
Governments, Aviv was a leading proponent of the fictional story that the U.S.
Government, not the Libyans, had blown up Pan Am flight 103.
5
Aviv was the subject of an extensive expose in the Village Voice (and other
publications), that documented his dubious background and fabricated
self-promotion [R-170-Exhbit-E]).
6
The bankruptcy judge in this case had previously taken a keen interest in Mideast
terrorist matters and had become a public figure who was enmeshed in an
acrimonious domestic debate over the 1967 “Liberty incident” during the 1967

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Defendants7, who worked exclusively for BS&C in the endeavors complained of. An

early employee of BS&C was a mysterious private detective, William H. Riley, who

was also connected to BS&C in other dubious matters. The Palm Beach police later

identified Riley as having conducted witness tampering with the child victims of the

notorious BS&C billionaire hedge fund manager Jeffrey Epstein. After the witness

tampering incident, Epstein pled guilty to the sexual predator charges that had been

lodged against him.

None of the “black ops” team members (and Aviv himself) billed the bankruptcy

estate8 for their “services” (all to benefit BS&C, not the estate) and were therefore,

admittedly never employed by the estate but instead by BS&C, which paid them

directly. Indeed, Goldberg, the bankruptcy trustee, and BS&C both disavowed any debt

owed by the bankruptcy estate to BS&C under their “smokescreen” June 1998

financing agreement. Goldberg never listed a debt to BS&C on his required statement

Arab-Israeli war, and who later authored a controversial book on that topic. During
the ex parte hearings in 2000, apparently without knowledge of Aviv’s true
background (which Defendants did not inform him of), he vouched for Aviv based
on being convinced of Aviv’s capability derived from speeches, given by Aviv, that
he had attended. Recusal should have occurred.
7
Aviv claimed he had confidential informants and others trained in “black ops”
actions who he was working closely with and supervising.
8
They did not submit mandatory fee payment applications, under
Fed.R.Bankr.P.2016, and never received any funds from the estate, but instead from
BS&C directly.

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of assets and liabilities of the bankruptcy estate9.

Defendants, through fraud and deception, thereby managed to have control of

the law enforcement arm of the U.S. Government turned over to a self-proclaimed

Israeli assassin. And thereby, BS&C was able to conduct illegal communications

surveillance, for debt collection purposes, that even the President was prohibited from

conducting for national security. These actions are not within the scope of duties of a

bankruptcy trustee.

The actions undertaken by BS&C, to collect on their judgment, had no relevance

to the turn over order entered against Lawrence. They consisted of a) “black ops”

operations, including break-ins, electronic surveillance, intimidation, theft of law

enforcement tapes, bribery of employees of domestic, British, and other banks, theft of

bank records, and other crimes self-evident from Aviv’s own statements (that were

accepted as truthful without an iota of supporting evidence and with all evidence to the

contrary); and b) legal action in British and other Courts that were solely for the benefit

of BS&C (because the King order and Goldberg’s failure to obtain a judgment against

the trust10 (or Lawrence) fatally precluded any actions on behalf of the bankruptcy

9
Defendant Aviv never submitted a single bill to Goldberg. BS&C was his client at
all times, independent of whether Goldberg said he would be hiring him (a statement
that, at best, was a sham pronouncement).
10
British Courts, well familiar with bankruptcy law, never accepted a denial of
discharge order as a judgment against a third party entity where Goldberg had not
even attempted to obtain a judgment against that entity (which already had been in

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estate in those courts).

The secret litigation, undertaken in British (and other courts), had no possible

relationship to turnover because there was no enforceable judgment in favor of

Goldberg. The British litigation was against the same trustee named in the earlier

litigation before Judge King (which BS&C had already abandoned), so there was no

purpose for secrecy, except to conceal that the litigation was only based on BS&C’s

judgment (after Lawrence was denied his discharge). The lack of success by BS&C, in

British Courts, was because of their inability to obtain a money judgment against the

trust, the predicate to execution11, so false allegations of hidden assets were irrelevant12
13
.

Furthermore, the “black ops” conducted by BS&C also had no relationship to

turnover. They involved the theft of U.S. Government law enforcement tapes for

BS&C’s own private use.

U.S. Court before Judge King) and where Judge King already ruled the trust had title
to its assets.
11
Goldberg could not, under any circumstances, obtain a judgment based on a
denial of discharge order (or the turnover order, which was simply enforcement of
the discharge order’s defective money “judgment”) where discharge law, 11 U.S.C.
§ 727, provided no such remedy.
12
Goldberg has always conflated the terms used for Lawrence’s allegedly hidden
assets with trust assets.
13
Indeed, Aviv, under oath, swore he already had in his possession the hidden bank
accounts of the trust and Lawrence. Yet, even with that “evidence,” British courts
not only threw out BS&C’s lawsuit but Aviv (and others) narrowly escaped
prosecution for admitted theft and bribery of British banks.

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 Lawrence’s lawsuit has no conceivable effect on the bankruptcy estate.

Therefore, it does not fall under “related to” jurisdiction. The Court’s ruling is in

conflict with Northern Pipeline Constr. Co. v. Marathon Pipe Line Co., 458 U.S. 50

(1982) and 28 U.S.C. § 1334(b). In addition, even ignoring that the claims are not

“related to” claims, in Justice Cometh, Ltd. v. Lambert, 426 F.3d 1342 (11th Cir. 2005)

this Court decided that under 28 U.S.C. § 1334 the district courts had original

jurisdiction over all Title 11 U.S.C. cases. Justice Cometh made it clear that although

district courts may refer all Title 11 proceedings to bankruptcy court, they have original

(but not exclusive) jurisdiction over all claims arising under Title 11, pursuant to 28

U.S.C. § 1334. Justice Cometh, 426 F.3d at 1343 & n.2. Justice Cometh at 1343,

apropos to Lawrence, states:

the district courts may "provide that any or all cases under title 11 and any or all
proceedings arising under title 11" be referred to the bankruptcy court for that
district. 28 U.S.C. § 157(a). However, the explicit § 1334 grant of original
jurisdiction over Title 11 cases clearly forecloses a conclusion that the district
court lacked subject matter jurisdiction over this case.

The Defendants took no estate property, did not harm estate property, and the

estate owes BS&C nothing for the funds spent by BS&C to retain Defendants—as

Goldberg and BS&C already admitted when they disavowed a debt by the estate to

BS&C. Thereby, funds paid to Defendants are not recoverable by the estate. Nor can

the bankruptcy estate claim Lawrence’s post-filing damages, which are not estate

property. Therefore, there is no effect whatsoever on the bankruptcy estate and

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Defendants have not pointed to any such effect.

Had the secret actions of BS&C been “related” to turnover then they would have

been disclosed to Lawrence, the District Court, and to this Court. This is because that

information would have been relevant to the ability to effect turnover. Indeed, the true

results of the extensive BS&C/Aviv “black ops” tactics were exonerating against

Lawrence’s ability to effect turnover, but were never reported even to the bankruptcy

court14.

Furthermore, Goldberg had already obtained an unchallengeable order, the

September 1998 discharge sanction order. Under res judicata, Lawrence was forever

prohibited from any challenge to its finding that he could comply with turnover. So the

only value to the bankruptcy estate of the secret surveillance of Lawrence and his

attorneys, during Lawrence’s appeals to this court and the district court, was to find out

Lawrence’s attorney client communications on appeal strategy. The fact that BS&C

was stealing law enforcement tapes for its own debt collection and intimidation

purposes, and for advantage in pending Florida state court proceedings, among the

many other allegations, had no effect on the bankruptcy estate. Goldberg already knew

all relevant facts about the Trust and that he could not succeed in a lawsuit against it, as

14
Defendant Budwick, on June 17, 2004, testified he had found no evidence
Lawrence had ever hidden or ever controlled any assets[ R-69-¶81], the exact
opposite of Aviv’s “reports.”

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was amply demonstrated in the complete failure in the secret British litigation 15 .

Because Goldberg had refused to pursue a lawsuit, needed after Judge King’s order to

obtain a judgment, he therefore had no judgment he could enforce.

There is no penalty a bankruptcy court can enforce against Defendants. When

estate property is harmed, the remedy can be disgorgement or restitution. Neither is

available here since Goldberg already rejected owing a debt to BS&C and BS&C

acceded to that rejection. Thereby they already admit Defendants were paid by BS&C

for its own purposes. In addition, the time proximity of BS&C’s illegal actions of

bribery, theft of law enforcement tapes, and other violations of law using their “black

ops” team, to the bankruptcy case, does not bring those acts within the duties of a

bankruptcy trustee. Indeed, BS&C’s “black ops” actions were nothing more than

terrorist activities16, not recognizable duties of a court officer17. Nor does any official

15
Defendants, despite many requests, have refused to disclose or file the court
papers they used in British and other courts, and the information was therefore
derived from other sources, asserted in the Complaint, and was never rebutted by
Defendants. Indeed, there was no legitimate reason not to disclose the results of the
litigation that Defendants falsely claim was to enforce turnover.
16
In another case, where Aviv was not so successful in dismissal, he was accused of
attempting to lure a victim (a critic of a well know cult, NXIVM) to a ship outside of
U.S. territorial waters (for the implicit purpose of having him “disappear”). Case
No.06-cv-01051-DMC-MF
17
Such official duties clearly do not extend to the theft of U.S. Government law
enforcement tapes and the establishment of a black ops team, premised on
intimidation and other illegal acts against U.S. Citizens, including not only
Lawrence but his family, attorneys, business associates, the financial institutions he
deals with, and any other U.S. citizen who he is in contact with.

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duty extend to such actions. Yet, defendants cannot explain why the “black ops” were

not disclosed to the bankruptcy court, the necessary prerequisite to any claim of official

duties. Instead, extreme effort was made to not disclose the actions complained of to

any Court.

Goldberg, to claim a right to turnover, always relied on single line in the July

1998 Discharge Order that ruled the settlement assets, transferred in 1991, were estate

property. However, to obtain that one line ruling, Goldberg “ambushed” Lawrence

during the discharge sanctions proceeding. Lawrence had no warning that he was being

held liable for a 1991 pre-filing transfer in a discharge proceeding, under 11 U.S.C. §

727, which section doesn’t provide such remedy.

To assure Lawrence had no chance at the July 1998 hearing, before that hearing

Defendant Fierberg introduced his own perjured affidavit, which he supported by using

the mysterious private detective William H. Riley (supra) [Complaint at ¶¶31-33]. This

was done at an off-the-docket hearing, not disclosed of until late 2006. Mr. Fierberg,

who could not obtain a single witness statement from his purported (but fictional)

fourteen witnesses, swore that Lawrence had threatened a fourteen year old child in

order to witness tamper18. In reality, Fierberg successfully sought to fatally undermine

Lawrence at the subsequent July 1998 sanction hearing. Lawrence had no chance to

confront Fierberg and his devastating perjured accusations and did not even know they

18
An ironic accusation in light of Mr. Riley’s later witness tampering difficulties.

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were already accepted by the bankruptcy court, under an order to keep them

off-the-docket [R-69-¶¶33, 34, 37-39, 47]. At the sanction hearing, Lawrence was

prohibited from presenting any supporting witnesses and evidence on the basis of

argument that only his “credibility” was an issue and therefore Lawrence should not be

permitted to support that credibility with evidence. Critically, Fierberg was successful

in barring all of Lawrence’s evidence and witnesses by stating that Goldberg was not

seeking trust assets in the sanctions hearing because the law prohibited that remedy in

an 11 U.S.C. § 727 discharge proceeding. Only much later, when Fierberg filed his

motion for turnover, did Lawrence first discover that there was a “judgment” against

him that was enforceable by a possible life-term of imprisonment, was contrary to law,

and was contrary to the very statements used during the sanctions hearing to

successfully bar Lawrence’s defenses. Lawrence also then learned that he was forever

prohibited from challenging that “judgment”19.

19
Also, the central findings in the discharge order were directly rebuttable as
incorrect based on easily available evidence. They included the key finding that
Lawrence had concealed the existence of the trust during the bankruptcy. In reality,
Lawrence immediately disclosed the existence of the Trust (and it was listed on
documents provided to BS&C) when BS&C first commenced discovery in the early
1990’s. It was that very disclosure that led to BS&C’s turnover motion, which
motion was denied by Judge King. Another plain error was the accusation that
Lawrence lied because he stated the trust provided for charities, but which provision
was in the trust documents exactly as Lawrence remembered during his testimony.
There were many other inaccuracies that Lawrence never had a chance to rebut.
Indeed, Lawrence’s attorney at the time, Robert Stok, twice deliberately
defaulted Lawrence’s appeal of the discharge order so as to have advantage in a

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 The lack of a relationship between Defendants’ actions and either turn over, or

the bankruptcy case, is also demonstrated by the ruling that because Lawrence could

arguably change trustees then his ability to perform turnover was already assured20.

That ruling meant the bankruptcy estate had no need for secret proceedings, or for

BS&C’s “black ops.”

CONCLUSION

For the foregoing reasons, it is respectfully requested that the Court reconsider

its Order affirming dismissal of the case.

lawsuit he started against Lawrence and his family, to collect allegedly due fees,
before he defaulted the discharge order. Stok was also later extensively sanctioned
and made a deal with BS&C to arrange a foreclosure on Lawrence homestead.
20
Obviously, the real issues were 1) assuming Lawrence should be imprisoned
(under the false presumption that he could force a trustee to comply) to coerce a
confession to the bankruptcy crime of hiding estate assets under the “act of
production” Fifth Amendment doctrine (i.e., an admission that estate property is
being turned over and he was hiding it); 2) then would a trustee, who may very well
have dissipated the Trust’s assets, accept the appointment of a new trustee and admit
to the U.S. crime of bankruptcy fraud when he already has the complete defense (he
would be waiving) of a) the order of Judge King that the property involved was
never estate property, so there was no crime; and b) the later orders, of British and
other courts, similar to Judge King’s order, that ruled there was no judgment against
the separate entity (the Trust) to execute on.
One of the secret documents filed by Fierberg was his statement to the U.S.
Attorney’s Office (“USAO”) that he believed turn over would be sufficient evidence
of bankruptcy fraud (e.g., the testimonial value of the act of production) to prosecute
Lawrence for bankruptcy fraud. [R-139-2-71]. The USAO’s response was that Mr.
Fierberg was on a fishing expedition when he sought the law enforcement tapes. Mr.
Fierberg never told the USAO that he was intending to illegally pass the law
enforcement tapes on to BS&C for their private use—the central reason for
obtaining the tapes.

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 Respectfully Submitted,

________________________
Stephan J. Lawrence
19500 Turnberry Way, #23A
Aventura, FL 33180
(754) 204 3009

CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE

I HEREBY CERTIFY that a true and correct copy of the foregoing was mailed,
U.S. postage prepaid, to Paul Avron, Berger Singerman, 200 S. Biscayne Blvd. Suite
1000, Miami FL 33131, Michael Budwick, Esq., Meland Russin & Budwick P.A., 200
South Biscayne Blvd. Suite 3000, Miami, FL 33131, Edward Tillinghast, III, Esq.,
Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton, LLP, 30 Rockefeller Plaza, 24th Floor, New
York, NY 10112, Mark Cohen, Esq., Mark D. Cohen, P.A., 4000 Hollywood Blvd.
Suite 435 South, Hollywood, FL 33021, Heather Windt, Esq., Friedman Kaplan Seiler
& Adelman LLP, 1633 Broadway New York, NY 10019, Stephen Rosenthal, Podhurst
Orseck P.A., 25 W. Flagler St., Suite 800, Miami, FL 33130, Bennett Falk, Esq.,
Matthew Wolper, Esq., Bressler Amery & Ross, P.C., 2801 S.W. 149th Ave., Suite
3000, Miramar, FL 33027, Howard Kahn, Kahn & Chenkin, 2924 Davie Road, Suite
200, Davie, FL 33314, and Noah Bender, Mitrani, Rynor & Adamsky, P.A., 2200
SunTrust International Center, One S.E. Third Avenue, Miami, Florida 33131 on July
29, 2009.

____________________________
Stephan J. Lawrence

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