Photos: Twitter\YouTube
On May 16, 2023, we believe we were victims of a cyberattack when our website crashed, and with it, 25,768 articles.
In the past, some of our most critical editorials or articles about corruption allegations had been specifically targeted and deleted. But never before had our website crashed.
We’d often learn about deleted articles when a reader let us know that a link they’d clicker after a Google search led them to a black page on the site. Sometimes we’d accidentally make the discovery.
For example, on December 20, 2022 we discovered that an article dealing with alleged mortgage fraud in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Eastern District of New York, had been deleted. We wrote about this incident to the New York State Attorney General, Letitia James, on that same date.
We’d published that deleted article on August 2, 2022, under the headline “Queens Property Owner, Ashmeen Modikhan, Says She’s Victim of ‘Mortgage Scam’ In U.S. Bankruptcy Court.”
This is a case of alleged egregious corruption in a fraudulent foreclosure scheme that we’ve been following closely. A related story–we’ve published four articles so far about this case–ran on October 4, 2022, under the headline, “Black Star News Investigation Finds Frank Cassisi, Ex-Lawyer for Woman in Alleged Bankruptcy Court Scam, Filed ‘Forged’ Court Papers.”
The forged agreement remains on the docket in the Eastern District and the judge presiding over Ms. Modikhan’s case, Jil Mazer-Marino, has flatly refused to do anything about it. Instead she’s awarded the forger Cassisi $166,000 in lawyer’s fees. By acknowledging Cassisi’s criminal action, Mazer-Marino would have to review other documents in the case. Ms. Midikhan claims the proofs of claim are fraudulent and that bogus “creditors” want to steal her properties and a $5 million personal injury lawsuit.
We have no idea if people involved in Modikhan’s foreclosure case had anything to do with the crash of our site. We find it interesting that we discovered a specific instance where one of the articles about the case had been deleted.
On May 22, 2023, we sent a detailed letter to the New York Police Department’s 46 precinct–the jurisdiction that covers Black Star News publisher’s residence–describing the May 16 incident; we also reported it to the office of Attorney General James.
In truth, deletions of articles from our website dates back as far as 2011.
Here are some past incidents:
- In September 2011, an Editorial critical of the US/NATO war on Libya and The New York Times’ support of the invasion— ignoring the massacre of Black Libyans in Tawergha — was deleted.
Our critical editorial had provided phone numbers and urged readers to call and complain to the New York Times, the State Department, the White House, the NAACP and Urban League, that they were all ignoring the massacre of Black Libyans.
Publisher Milton Allimadi also discuss the incident in his book “Manufacturing Hate How Africa Was Demonized in Western Media.”
- Editorials critical of The New York Times’ coverage of the killings by police of Eric Garner and Michael Brown were deleted.
- Editorials and articles critical of an organization called Invisible Children’s and the US government’s KONY2012 propaganda video, promoting military intervention in Uganda, was deleted. Our editorial, which was written about by several media outlets including www.businessinsider.com revealed that Invisible Children, a so-called U.S. “charity” had spied for the U.S.-backed military regime in Uganda.
- An article about alleged corruption by Judge Margaret McGowan in New York State Supreme Court in Queens County was deleted.
We must be doing something worthwhile.
We are disappointed that we were not able to publish since May 16, 2023, until today.
On the other hand, we are elated to know that we are producing journalism that some individuals or entities are scared of — individuals or entities that like operating in darkness.
Too bad for them.
To paraphrase a certain former muscleman: “Black Star News is back.”
We thank all those who’ve contributed to our GoFundMe campaign for our new website.
https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-black-star-newspaper-expose-corrupt-judges
