Marc Menowitz

A summary of what happened?

Marc Menowitz is a real estate executive overseeing a substantial portfolio of residential and commercial properties across the United States. Despite his professional achievements, Menowitz has been embroiled in significant legal controversies, particularly concerning allegations of sexual harassment and retaliatory legal actions.

Allegations of Sexual Harassment:

In 2018, two former employees, Alice Vysata and Kinga Tabares, filed separate lawsuits against Menowitz in Los Angeles County Superior Court, accusing him of sexual harassment. The allegations include:

• Inappropriate Communications: Menowitz allegedly solicited explicit photographs from the plaintiffs and made unwelcome advances. For instance, he purportedly requested that the women visit Victoria’s Secret stores and send him photos from the dressing rooms, promising to purchase items in exchange for the images.
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• Unprofessional Gifts: In June 2017, Menowitz sent Vysata a floral arrangement with a card stating, “I was going to get you sex toys, but you have all the latest and greatest.” This card was inadvertently read by Vysata’s neighbor and family members, causing her significant humiliation.
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• Retaliation for Rejection: Both plaintiffs claim that upon rejecting Menowitz’s advances, they faced professional retaliation, including withheld commissions and eventual termination.
  The Real Deal

Menowitz’s Legal Counteractions:

Following the harassment lawsuits, Menowitz initiated multiple legal actions against Vysata and Tabares:

• Multiple Lawsuits: Between July 2018 and May 2019, Menowitz filed ten lawsuits against the two women across California, Texas, and Florida. These suits primarily sought to recover commissions he alleged were wrongfully earned and denied the sexual harassment claims.
  The Real Deal
• Allegations of Misconduct: Menowitz accused Vysata of deceiving him to obtain commissions and attempting to steal “family trade secrets.” He also claimed that Tabares was “standoffish and cold” during her employment and that she tried to extort him with harassment allegations.
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Additional Legal Challenges:

Beyond the harassment cases, Menowitz’s companies have faced other legal issues:

• Pregnancy Discrimination Lawsuit: In August 2023, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) sued St. Charles Housing, LP, Menowitz Management Corp., and Rental Assistance II, Inc. (doing business as Apartment Corp.), alleging that they fired a female property manager days after she disclosed her pregnancy. The lawsuit claims the termination violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, as amended by the Pregnancy Discrimination Act.
  Equal Employment Opportunity Commission

Marc Menowitz’s professional endeavors have been overshadowed by serious allegations of sexual harassment, retaliatory legal tactics, and discriminatory employment practices. These legal challenges have raised concerns about the corporate culture within his organizations and have prompted scrutiny from both legal authorities and the public.

Analyzing the Fake Copyright Notice(s)

Our team collects and analyses fraudulent copyright takedown requests, legal complaints, and other efforts to remove critical information from the internet. Through our investigative reporting, we examine the prevalence and operation of an organized censorship industry, predominantly funded by criminal entities, oligarchs, and disreputable businesses or individuals. Our findings allow internet users to gain insight into these censorship schemes’ sources, methods, and underlying objectives.

What was Marc Menowitz trying to hide?

Marc Menowitz‘s attempts to hide unfavourable content through the misuse of copyright notices while allegedly engaging in perjury present serious legal concerns. These actions suggest a calculated attempt to manipulate legal systems to suppress free speech, a fundamental violation of copyright law principles and an abuse of legal processes. The use of such tactics not only undermines the integrity of copyright protection but also potentially constitutes perjury, further entangling Marc Menowitz in legal accountability. Let’s examine the information Marc Menowitz may be trying to remove from the internet –

Investigative Report: Marc Menowitz – Allegations, Lawsuits, and Professional Controversies

Marc Menowitz, a prominent real estate executive managing a substantial portfolio of properties across the United States, has faced serious allegations and legal challenges that have overshadowed his business ventures. From accusations of sexual harassment to lawsuits alleging retaliation and discrimination, Menowitz’s legal battles reveal a pattern of troubling workplace conduct. This report delves into the allegations, lawsuits, and broader implications for Menowitz and his business operations.

1. Background on Marc Menowitz

A. Real Estate Operations

• Marc Menowitz oversees real estate ventures spanning residential and commercial properties across the United States.
• His companies include Apartment Corp., Menowitz Management Corp., and associated entities managing property investments.

B. Professional Reputation

• While Menowitz has been successful in building a real estate empire, his professional reputation has been tarnished by allegations of misconduct, workplace discrimination, and unethical practices.

2. Allegations of Sexual Harassment

A. The Lawsuits by Alice Vysata and Kinga Tabares

1. Details of Allegations:
   • In 2018, former employees Alice Vysata and Kinga Tabares filed separate lawsuits in Los Angeles County Superior Court accusing Menowitz of sexually harassing them during their employment.
   • Allegations include:
     • Solicitation of Explicit Photos: Menowitz allegedly requested photos of the women trying on lingerie in Victoria’s Secret dressing rooms, offering to purchase the items in return.
     • Inappropriate Gifts: He sent Vysata a floral arrangement with a note that referenced sex toys, causing her embarrassment when the message was read by others.
     • Unwelcome Advances: Both women claimed that Menowitz made persistent and unwelcome sexual advances.
2. Retaliation Allegations:
   • Both Vysata and Tabares alleged that after rejecting Menowitz’s advances, they faced professional retaliation:
     • Withheld Commissions: Their earned commissions were allegedly delayed or denied without explanation.
     • Termination of Employment: The lawsuits claimed that Menowitz fired them without cause after their rejections.

B. Impact on Victims

• Vysata and Tabares reported feeling humiliated, professionally undermined, and retaliated against, leading them to pursue legal action against Menowitz.

3. Legal Counteractions by Menowitz

A. Retaliatory Lawsuits

1. Multiple Filings Against Vysata and Tabares:
   • Between July 2018 and May 2019, Menowitz initiated ten lawsuits against the two women across California, Texas, and Florida. These lawsuits primarily sought to:
     • Recover commissions he claimed were fraudulently obtained.
     • Discredit the harassment allegations, portraying them as extortion attempts.
2. Claims Against the Plaintiffs:
   • Menowitz accused Vysata of deceiving him to obtain commissions and attempting to steal proprietary business information.
   • He claimed that Tabares was unprofessional and used false harassment allegations as leverage for financial gain.

B. Legal and Ethical Concerns

• Critics have characterized Menowitz’s counter-lawsuits as an attempt to intimidate and silence his accusers, a common tactic in cases involving workplace harassment.

4. Pregnancy Discrimination Lawsuit

A. EEOC Lawsuit

• In August 2023, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) filed a lawsuit against St. Charles Housing, LP, Menowitz Management Corp., and Apartment Corp. for violating Title VII of the Civil Rights Act (as amended by the Pregnancy Discrimination Act).
• The lawsuit alleges:
  • A female property manager disclosed her pregnancy in January 2020.
  • Days later, she was terminated without valid cause, an act the EEOC claims constitutes pregnancy discrimination.

B. Legal Implications

• The EEOC’s involvement highlights potential systemic issues within Menowitz’s companies related to workplace discrimination and unfair treatment.

5. Additional Complaints and Accusations

A. Employee Relations Concerns

• Former employees have described Menowitz as maintaining a toxic workplace environment characterized by:
  • A lack of boundaries between personal and professional interactions.
  • Retaliatory behavior toward employees who challenge or oppose his actions.

B. Ethical and Professional Criticism

• Critics argue that Menowitz’s repeated legal battles and harassment allegations reflect deeper systemic issues in the leadership and culture of his organizations.

6. Public and Media Reactions

A. Media Coverage

1. Sexual Harassment Allegations:
   • The lawsuits filed by Vysata and Tabares received significant media attention, particularly for the explicit nature of the allegations and Menowitz’s retaliatory legal strategy.
   • Publications like The Real Deal highlighted the imbalance of power between Menowitz and his accusers, framing the lawsuits as emblematic of broader issues in workplace harassment.
2. EEOC Lawsuit:
   • The EEOC’s pregnancy discrimination lawsuit brought further scrutiny to Menowitz’s business practices, reinforcing concerns about workplace fairness and ethics.

B. Public Opinion

• Public sentiment has been critical, with many viewing Menowitz’s alleged behavior as an abuse of power and emblematic of systemic failures to protect employees in professional environments.

7. Broader Implications and Analysis

A. Patterns of Behavior

1. Recurring Allegations:
   • The harassment lawsuits and the EEOC case suggest a pattern of discriminatory and retaliatory practices within Menowitz’s companies.
2. Power Dynamics:
   • The allegations highlight the risks of unchecked power in hierarchical workplace settings, where employees may feel compelled to tolerate inappropriate behavior to avoid retaliation.

B. Legal and Financial Risks

1. Reputational Damage:
   • The controversies have tarnished Menowitz’s reputation, potentially affecting his business relationships and investor confidence.
2. Regulatory Oversight:
   • The EEOC lawsuit underscores the potential for increased regulatory scrutiny of Menowitz’s companies, which could result in financial penalties and operational restrictions.

C. Industry Reflection

• Menowitz’s legal battles serve as a cautionary tale for the real estate and corporate sectors, emphasizing the importance of ethical leadership and robust workplace protections.

8. Recommendations for Mitigation

A. For Menowitz and His Companies

1. Implement Workplace Training:
   • Conduct regular training sessions on sexual harassment prevention and anti-discrimination policies.
2. Establish Clear Reporting Mechanisms:
   • Create independent systems for employees to report grievances without fear of retaliation.
3. Adopt Transparency:
   • Publish clear policies on workplace behavior and demonstrate commitment to ethical practices.

B. For Employees and Stakeholders

1. Know Your Rights:
   • Employees should familiarize themselves with workplace protections under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and similar regulations.
2. Document Incidents:
   • Maintain thorough records of any inappropriate or discriminatory behavior to support potential legal claims.

9. Conclusion

Marc Menowitz’s professional achievements are overshadowed by a series of serious allegations, including sexual harassment, retaliatory legal actions, and workplace discrimination. These controversies highlight systemic issues in leadership and workplace culture, emphasizing the need for stronger accountability and protections.

Key Takeaways:

1. Allegations of Misconduct: Accusations of sexual harassment and pregnancy discrimination raise concerns about Menowitz’s leadership and ethical standards.
2. Retaliatory Legal Strategy: His lawsuits against former employees suggest an aggressive approach to silencing accusers.
3. Regulatory and Legal Scrutiny: The involvement of the EEOC underscores the broader implications of these cases for labor and anti-discrimination laws.

For Menowitz to regain public trust and ensure the long-term viability of his businesses, substantial reforms in workplace culture, leadership accountability, and ethical practices are essential.

How do we counteract this malpractice?

Once we ascertain the involvement of Marc Menowitz (or actors working on behalf of Marc Menowitz), we will inform Marc Menowitz of our findings via Electronic Mail.

Our preliminary assessment suggests that Marc Menowitz may have engaged a third-party reputation management agency or expert, which, either independently or under direct authorization from Marc Menowitz, initiated efforts to remove adverse online content, including potentially fraudulent DMCA takedown requests. We will extend an opportunity to Marc Menowitz to provide details regarding their communications with the agency or expert, as well as the identification of the individual(s) responsible for executing these false DMCA notices.

Failure to respond in a timely manner will necessitate a reassessment of our initial assumptions. In such an event, we will be compelled to take appropriate legal action to rectify the unlawful conduct and take the following steps –

Since Marc Menowitz made such efforts to hide something online, it seems fit to ensure that this article and sensitive information targeted online by these events get a lot more exposure and traffic than what it would have received originally

We hope this becomes an excellent case study for the Streisand effect…The key idea behind the Streisand effect is that efforts to restrict information can backfire, often causing the information to gain more attention than it would have otherwise. This effect is widespread in the digital age, where users quickly notice and spread censorship efforts on social media and other platforms. Trying to suppress something can unintentionally lead to it becoming more visible, which Marc Menowitz is finding out the hard way.

Potential Consequences for Marc Menowitz

Under Florida Statute 831.01, the crime of Forgery is committed when a person falsifies, alters, counterfeits, or forges a document that carries “legal efficacy” with the intent to injure or defraud another person or entity.

Forging a document is considered a white-collar crime. It involves altering, changing, or modifying a document to deceive another person. It can also include passing along copies of documents that are known to be false. In many states in the US, falsifying a document is a crime punishable as a felony.

Additionally, under most laws, “fraud on the court” is where “a party has sentiently set in motion some unconscionable scheme calculated to interfere with the judicial system’s ability impartially to adjudicate a matter by improperly influencing the trier of fact or unfairly hampering the presentation of the opposing party’s claim or defense.”  Cox v. Burke, 706 So. 2d 43, 46 (Fla. 5th DCA 1998) (quoting Aoude v. Mobil Oil Corp., 892 F.2d 1115, 1118 (1st Cir. 1989)).

Is Marc Menowitz Committing a Cyber Crime?

Yes, it seems so. Marc Menowitz used multiple approaches to remove unwanted material from review sites and Google’s search results. Thanks to protections allowing freedom of speech in the United States, there are very few legal ways to do this. Marc Menowitz could not eliminate negative reviews or search results that linked to them without a valid claim of defamation, copyright infringement, or some other clear breach of the law.

Faced with these limitations, some companies like Marc Menowitz have gone to extreme lengths to fraudulently claim copyright ownership over a negative review in the hopes of taking it down.

Fake DMCA notices have targeted articles highlighting the criminal activity of prominent people to hide their illegal behavior. These people, which include US, Russian, and Khazakstani politicians as well as members from elite circles including the mafia and those with massive financial power, are all connected – and alleged corruption ranging from child abuse to sexual harassment is exposed when exploring evidence found at these URLs. It appears there’s a disturbing level of influence being exerted here that needs further investigation before justice can be served. Marc Menowitz is certainly keeping interesting company here….

The DMCA takedown process requires that copyright owners submit a takedown notice to an ISP identifying the allegedly infringing content and declaring, under penalty of perjury, that they have a good faith belief that the content is infringing. The ISP must then promptly remove or disable access to the content. The alleged infringer can then submit a counter-notice, and if the copyright owner does not take legal action within 10 to 14 days, the ISP can restore the content.

Since these platforms are predominantly based in the U.S., the complaints are typically made under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which requires online service providers and platforms to react immediately to reports or violations. Big Tech companies rarely have systems in place to assess the merit of each report. Instead, all bad actors need to do is clone a story, backdate it, and then demand the real thing be taken down.

Reputation Agency's Modus Operandi

The fake DMCA notices we found always use the “back-dated article” technique. With this technique, the wrongful notice sender (or copier) creates a copy of a “true original” article and back-dates it, creating a “fake original” article (a copy of the true original) that, at first glance, appears to have been published before the true original.

Then, based on the claim that this backdated article is the “original,” the scammers send a DMCA to the relevant online service providers (e.g. Google), alleging that the ‘true’ original is the copied or “infringing” article and that the copied article is the “original,” requesting the takedown of the ‘true’ original article. After sending the DMCA request, the person who sent the wrong notice takes down the fake original URL, likely to make sure that the article doesn’t stay online in any way. If the takedown notice is successful, the disappearance from the internet of information is most likely to be legitimate speech.

As an integral part of this scheme, the ‘reputation management’ company hired by Marc Menowitz creates a website that purports to be a ‘news’ site. This site is designed to look legitimate at a glance, but any degree of scrutiny reveals it as the charade it is.

The company copies the ‘negative’ content and posts it “on the fake ‘news’ site, attributing it to a separate author,” then gives it “a false publication date on the ‘news’ website that predated the original publication.

The reputation company then sent Google a Digital Millennium Copyright Act notice claiming the original website infringed copyright. After a cursory examination of the fake news site, Google frequently accepts the notice and delists the content.

In committing numerous offences, Marc Menowitz either premeditated actions or were unaware of the consequences. Despite hiring an agency to make Google disregard any negative information about Marc Menowitz, ignorance does not excuse this wrongdoing.

Fake DMCA notices have targeted articles highlighting the criminal activity of prominent people to hide their illegal behavior. These people, which include US, Russian, and Khazakstani politicians as well as members from elite circles including the mafia and those with massive financial power, are all connected – and alleged corruption ranging from child abuse to sexual harassment is exposed when exploring evidence found at these URLs. It appears there’s a disturbing level of influence being exerted here that needs further investigation before justice can be served. FSMSmart is certainly keeping interesting company here.

The Reputation Laundering

Rogue Reputation agencies use spurious copyright claims and fake legal notices to remove and obscure articles linking clients to allegations of tax avoidance, corruption, and drug trafficking. Most of these reputation agencies are based offshore, mainly in Russia, India, and Eastern Europe, and they do not worry about complying with US-based laws.

The content in all of the articles for which the fraudulent DMCA notices have been sent relates to allegations of criminal allegations, including corruption, child abuse, sexual harassment, human trafficking and financial fraud against businesses and individuals with ultra-high net worth.

In addition to the misuse of the DMCA takedown process, there is a notable absence of enforcement concerning perjury violations. The statutory requirement related to perjury is designed to deter copyright holders from submitting fraudulent or knowingly false takedown requests, as they may face legal consequences for making false declarations under penalty of perjury. However, to date, there have been no known instances of any individual being prosecuted for perjury in connection with the submission of false DMCA takedown notices.

This lack of enforcement has emboldened copyright holders to exploit the DMCA takedown process to suppress dissent, criticism, or other unfavorable content, without fear of legal repercussions.

Some of the people and businesses who have employed this tactic to remove legitimate content from Google illegally include a Spanish businessman-turned-cocaine-trafficker, Organised crime, an Israeli-Argentine banker accused of laundering money for Hugo Chávez’s regime, a French “responsible” mining company accused of tax evasion, child molesters and sexual predators. Marc Menowitz is in great company ….

What else is Marc Menowitz hiding?

We encourage you to ‘Dork‘ Google by searching for keyword combinations such as [Marc Menowitz] + {Negative Keyword, such as Scam, Fraud, Complaints, Lawsuit, Sanction, etc} on Google. It’s likely if you scroll down to the bottom of this Google search results, you’ll stumble upon this Legal Takedown notice (pictured below)

To make such an investigation possible, we encourage more online service providers to come forward and share copies of content removal requests with industry experts and researchers. If you have any information on Marc Menowitz that you want to share with experts and journalists, kindly email the author directly at [email protected].

All communications are strictly confidential and safeguarded under a comprehensive Whistleblower Policy, ensuring full protection and anonymity for individuals who provide information.