A business partner of slain Hasidic slumlord Menachem “Max” Stark is terrified that whoever left his pal’s body smoldering in a gas-station dumpster will now come after him.
Israel “Sam” Perlmutter fears for his life because of his close business dealings with Stark, which date back at least a decade and have involved multimillion-dollar deals that went south, said a source close to the dead man’s family.
Perlmutter is “loaded up with security guards,” said another source in the Satmar Hasidic community. “Everyone was talking in the synagogue that he’s afraid that he’s next.”
Two beefy men in suits watched over Perlmutter’s Williamsburg home from inside a black Ford Expedition on Sunday, just blocks from the house where Stark’s family is in mourning.
Perlmutter’s mom said that he was “shocked, shocked, shocked” by Stark’s grisly slaying and that his friends had hired the guards.
“His wife is very uncomfortable. You don’t feel comfortable that such things could happen in your business. It’s very scary,” Hannah Perlmutter said by phone from Montreal. She said Stark and her son were both “good friends and business partners” but that Sam, 42, “doesn’t know why this happened.”
“We all don’t know,” she said. “My son was very infrequently in the office. They each had their own jobs.”
A Queens man who sued Stark, Perlmutter and a third man, Eugene Mendlowitz, in 2010 over an unpaid, $ 3.5 million debt described Stark as “more like the manager” and the most “hands-on” of the trio.
“They were all together; they’re in the same business,” said Jerry Lebedowicz, an ex-NYPD cop.
According to court papers, Lebedowicz and his wife sold the three men a former sweater factory in Greenpoint for $ 8.25 million in 2005, of which $ 3.5 million was a “loan” from the couple.
“I did business with them, not in good way, but things happen,” said Lebedowicz, who added he and the three men had “squared away” the lawsuit. Mendlowitz could not be reached for comment.
A law-enforcement source said surveillance video shows that Stark, 39, fought for nearly five minutes with the two assailants who attacked him as he left his Rutledge Street office during Thursday night’s blizzard and shoved him into a light-colored Dodge minivan.
“You see the victim struggling for his life. He knows he’s dead if they get him into the van,” the source said. “One suspect is trying to keep him under control, and the other is trying to duct-tape him.”
The source said the blinding snowstorm left the streets barren of bystanders and made it impossible to see the kidnappers’ faces, noting, “If they didn’t do it on purpose at that specific time, then they were very lucky.”
Stark’s body was found Friday with burns over three-quarters of his body, a source said.
Additional reporting by Aaron Short
Yahoo Local News – New York Post
http://newyork.greatlocalnews.info/?p=20215
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