Cammise Yorker at St. John's Bread and Life women's group. Photo: Zepeda/Brooklyn Ink

By Mara Zepeda

When it comes time for Cammise Yorker to say what she is thankful for she takes a deep breath. “I’m thankful for my mom. She is my best friend,” she says. “I haven’t been working and my mom’s been taking care of me and my two kids.” She bursts into tears, and so do the fourteen other women in the room.

Lunch is served at the St. John’s Bread and Life women’s group in Bedford-Stuyvesant. The women gather here each week to support one another, to share stories of triumph and tragedy, to get advice and to socialize. They rise, hold hands, say grace and then express their gratitude: a new grandchild on the way, recovery after a long illness, the promise of their own apartment, a week of sobriety.

And then they dig in. Each woman has contributed a dish to the lunch, and the food is abundant: baked ziti, turkey, ham, salad, macaroni, rice, collard greens, garlic bread, apples. Hot sauce and mustard emerges from purses. The homemade fried chicken disappears.

A woman enjoys roast turkey. Photo: Zepeda/Brooklyn Ink

Most of the women in the room receive food stamps. They are the human face behind the recent Department of Agriculture statistics that point to an alarming spike in hunger. Almost 15% of the country now faces some food insecurity; the highest number on record since the data was first tracked starting in 1995. In the last year, Brooklyn has seen a 33% change in the number of people who receive food stamps. More than one in five people in the borough get them, including Yorker.

Each month she receives $480 in food stamps for her and her two sons. In March of this year Yorker, 33, was laid off after working for seven years at a Manhattan home for the mentally disabled.  Even when she was employed, her income didn’t cover basic expenses, so although her allowance has increased, being on food stamps wasn’t entirely new. Still, she misses her work. “It was the best job I’d ever had,” she says. She was lucky enough to live at home, in the house where she was born. Her mother charges her rent. “I didn’t sit on my behind,” says Yorker. She cashed out her retirement savings and just received certification as a medical assistant. Now she spends her days sending out resumes.

The staff at Bread and Life has seen a staggering rise in the number of people who call on them for food assistance. Eighty five percent more clients visited the food pantry then last year. The Single Stop program, which processes food stamp applications, has served over 5,500 clients this year, a rise of 67%. In response to the economic downturn, Congress passed legislation that increased the minimum monthly food stamp allowance to $200, an increase that has meant survival for many. For Gilberto Santiago, it is an improvement over the $28 he previously received. “It’s kinda’ enough for myself,” he says.

Carmen Rob, supervisor of the food pantry, says she is surprised by the new clients who come through her door. Many have never received food assistance before. Some had children in private school, or jobs in the financial industry, or were so ashamed that they refused to come out of their car. “They are embarrassed. They almost feel like they’re begging for food,” she says. Rob can’t stop thinking about the young woman, recently unemployed, who lives out of her car. “I gave her a bag of microwavable food,” she says. “I try to tell them that we all need help sometimes, and that I could just as easily be sitting in their position.” Janette Mercedes, coordinator of the Single Stop program, says she’s noticed an increase in the number of young people—recent college or high-school graduates—applying for assistance. Her full-time staff of three is having a hard time keeping up with all these new clients. “We are really stretching ourselves thin,” she says.

The art of assembling leftovers. Photo: Zepeda/Brooklyn Ink

Back at the women’s group luncheon the meal has ended. What happens next is the artful, efficient process of wrapping the leftovers for the women to take home. The standard method is to sandwich a heap of food between two paper plates, and then swaddle them with a generous sheet of tinfoil. The women crowd around the table and balance two or three packages in their arms, along with a bag of produce from the food pantry.

Cammise Yorker is acutely aware of how differently things might have turned out. “Without food stamps, my kids and I would walk around going to different pantries. And without my mom, I know for a fact I’d be in a shelter…if not for the grace of God.” A woman nearby nods her head. “I was always hungry, and miserable.” For today at least, with her tower of tin foil plates, she is not.

Enyonam Tolessi and her son Gabriel at their Irvington, NJ apartment. Photo courtesy of: Amanda Lucier

Listen to an audio interview with Enyonam Tolessi describing her experience as a victim of identity fraud:

–Mara Zepeda

John D’Emic is waiting to find out if he will be allowed to return to work as the Brooklyn Chief Deputy County Clerk. Enyonam Tolessi, an immigrant from Togo, is trying to repair her credit after almost a million dollars in mortgages were illegally obtained using her stolen identity. Their fates intertwined two years ago, and their futures hang in the balance.

Tolessi and D’Emic’s story is complicated. It features a dead man selling his house, a man posing as a woman to buy that house, a disbarred lawyer who orchestrated the sale, and a group of defendants that falsified mortgage documents, not to mention a pair of nuns who benefit from D’Emic’s community service sentence. The drama depicts the human cost of identity theft and mortgage fraud. It illuminates the lax lending practices that led to the subprime mortgage crisis. And it examines the fallout of two people’s lives, two years after the crime.

I. Nine Days in September

Some time in 2007, according to an indictment issued by the Queens District Attorney, Alan Morris, a disbarred lawyer, contacted John D’Emic about overseeing the closings for three real estate transactions. Morris hired D’Emic, then in private practice, as the attorney to represent either the buyer or the seller for these sales, which took place over nine days in September. In New York, lawyers often oversee the closings of residential home sales, and this is what D’Emic was hired to do. “We were just doing closings,” said D’Emic in an interview outside of his Bay Ridge home. “That was my only function.” D’Emic was familiar with and had done past litigation for John Weber and Associates, the firm where Morris worked.

One of the transactions D’Emic oversaw depicts the complexity of these three back-to-back sales, and the moment when D’Emic and Tolessi’s lives intersected. In this case, a seller with a stolen identity sells a house to a buyer with a stolen identity. The buyer and seller stand in a room at a closing, but neither is who they say they are.

On Sept. 13, 2007, what D’Emic describes as a routine closing for a Queens property took place. At least three people were in the room. The first was a buyer who gave the name of Enyonam Tolessi. That man appeared with stack of documentation proving his identity as Tolessi: employment references, accountant letters, a driver’s license, and a green card. According to the indictment, all of these documents were phony, and some of the defendants who are accused of fabricating them await trial.

The second person in the room was Alan Morris, disbarred since 1992, who acted as the agent for the lending company, Wells Fargo. Wells Fargo issued a mortgage for $490,500 in Tolessi’s name to go towards the purchase of the house, which sold for $635,000.

The third person in the room was the seller, a man who gave the name of Eugene Thomas. The Queens District Attorney would later learn that the Eugene Thomas was actually Willie Thomas (no relation), a man hired to play the role of the seller. Willie Thomas received $1,000 for his appearance at the closing. He later pleaded guilty to criminal impersonation and identity theft for his role in the scheme.

There was a fourth person involved, John D’Emic, who acted as attorney for the seller, Eugene Thomas. The indictment indicates that D’Emic arrived after the conclusion of the closing and subsequently signed off on the mortgage disbursement checks. D’Emic said he noticed nothing unusual about these three transactions. “It was just bang, bang, bang. Routine closings,” he said.

But this sale was far from routine. In November of 2008, two months after the sale, Dorothy Thomas, the widow of Eugene Thomas, started receiving foreclosure notices in the name of Tolessi Enyonam, apparently the new owner of her home. She reported to the DA’s Elder Fraud Unit that her home had been sold out from under her. In doing so Thomas, unknowingly, had connected the dots. The District Attorney’s indictment would later issue 66 counts against the nine people allegedly involved with the intricate fraud, including D’Emic and Morris. The investigation revealed that Enyonam Tolessi was a New Jersey woman whose identity had been stolen to take out the mortgage on Thomas’s home. And that Eugene Thomas had died in 1986, and his widow owned the house free and clear.

On September 13, 2007, a dead man sold his property to a man posing as a woman from Togo. Alan Morris represented the buyer and the lending agent, and D’Emic represented the seller.

II. Three Checks Still Raise Questions

John D’Emic looks like an unassuming civil servant. He is a short, balding man with rounded shoulders, glasses and a soft, understated voice. Something about his posture and comportment is like the popular images of St. Francis of Assisi, sporting a ring of hair and surrounded by animals. In January 2008, D’Emic was appointed Chief Deputy County Clerk for the Second Supreme Court Judicial district. The job came with a $96,910 annual salary, and the responsibility of managing the more than 1,000 people who report to jury duty at the Clerk’s office each week. Louis Fiorillo, a Deputy County Clerk at the Supreme Court Second Judicial District, said D’Emic was in charge of calling the right number of jurors for each trial and tracking their attendance. Almost a year into his new job, D’Emic’s involvement in overseeing three real estate transactions in 2007 would come back to haunt him.

In Nov. 18, 2008 the District Attorney charged D’Emic on 15 counts, including falsifying business records, conspiracy and engaging in a scheme to defraud as well as the sharing of compensation by attorneys, which is illegal. D’Emic was suspended from his job without pay at the County Clerk’s office immediately after the charges were announced.

On Oct. 1 of this year D’Emic pleaded guilty to the last count of sharing compensation, a misdemeanor. The remaining 14 charges were dropped. His sentence included a $10,000 fine and 30 days of community service. The Queens District Attorney refused to comment about whether D’Emic is cooperating with the investigation of the other defendants and why the other charges were dismissed.

“I worked everything out with the DA’s office,” D’Emic said, emphasizing that he did not plead guilty to the other more serious felony charges. “All I can tell you is that I’m innocent. And I agreed to this just to get rid of the case.” D’Emic is eager to put the case behind him and return to work. David Bookstaver, the Director of Communications for the Unified Court System confirmed that the Court has received correspondence from D’Emic’s lawyer requesting that his client’s job be reinstated. Deputy Chief Administrative Judge Fern A. Fisher will decide if and when D’Emic can return. Bookstaver said Fisher is reviewing the request and may consult others, but that it is unknown when the decision will be made.

In reviewing the case, Fisher may consider the nature of the crime that D’Emic pleaded guilty to: sharing compensation with Alan Morris. During the days surrounding the three sales, the indictment states that Morris issued three checks to D’Emic, each for $1,800, to compensate him for acting as attorney for the buyer or seller in the three sales. But the indictment also states that D’Emic then issued three checks back to Morris, each for $850, during the same time period. This is a violation of New York Judiciary Law, which prohibits the sharing of compensation by attorneys. One question that remains about these three small transactions is: Why did D’Emic pay Morris? D’Emic refused to comment about why he issued these checks to Morris, and what the money was for.

Alan Morris, the disbarred attorney also present at all three sales, admitted to participating in the fraud. Court documents show that he pleaded guilty to criminal facilitation, falsifying business records and conspiracy. He paid a $10,000 fine and is currently serving a 90-day sentence at the Eric M. Taylor correctional center on Rikers Island for his involvement in the scheme. He is expected to be released on November 28, according to the Department of Corrections. Morris’s attorney, Anthony Battisti, said D’Emic did not testify against his client. Morris’s wife, Leslie, had no comment.

What seems straightforward—D’Emic pleads guilty to a misdemeanor and Morris lands in jail—gets more complicated when all three properties are considered. Questions remain about D’Emic’s role as the attorney in these three sales.

On Sept. 13, as we know, D’Emic represented the seller—later identified a dead man— and that the house was sold to a person posing as the buyer Enyonam Tolessi. But this was not the first time that D’Emic had seen the name Enyonam Tolessi on a real estate transaction.

In fact the indictment states that just seven days earlier, on Sept. 6, D’Emic acted as the attorney for a buyer—a person claiming to be Enyonam Tolessi—in the purchase of another Queens house. This house, in Richmond Hill, sold for $545,000—and the person posing as Tolessi took out a mortgage for $533,850—almost 98% of the purchase price. In the course of a week D’Emic represented first the buyer then the seller in two transactions on mortgages totaling almost $1 million, both in Tolessi’s name, and both with Morris acting as the lending agent. On Sept. 14, D’Emic would also participate in a third sale, of a Brooklyn home, sold to a buyer with another, different stolen identity.

In some ways, D’Emic is right: these transactions could be considered routine at the time. From 2005 to 2007, the environment was ideal for fraudulent mortgage transactions like these, says Evans Prieston, a mortgage fraud attorney who practices in New York and California. “You had these mortgage products that had very little certification. There was so little verification required.” The three transactions in September that D’Emic oversaw took place during the heady days of this glut of available credit, when a sale could take place between two parties both with stolen identities, without the presence of a buyer’s credit report, and for 98% of a home’s purchase price.

The string of losses from 2005 to 2007 can now be considered the lending industry’s most expensive teachable moment. And to avoid history repeating itself, lenders now call Justin Vedder of The Prieston Group. The firm focuses on protecting lenders from mortgage fraud losses. “Business today want to make sure they have sound practices to protect themselves from the liabilities of the past,” says Vedder. He estimates that of the thousands of claims he investigated during this time period, 10 to 12 percent involved stolen identities or straw borrowers. “Mortgage fraud is the quickest way to get capital. No other investment instrument returns that much money.”

Fraud, he adds, was widespread during a time when banks issued the types of subprime, stated-income, no-documentation loans that ultimately led to the current financial crisis. As the three sales in September show, these transactions involved a cast of questionably qualified characters. In some cases, lending agents and brokers may have taken a simple test to gain certification, or were not certified at all. There was often no background check, or required continuing education on industry practices, or standardized licensing procedure. Vedder says that now “scrutiny on these individuals is going to be greater than ever before.” And with photo identification and a social security number, a buyer could gain access to a mortgage for hundreds of thousands of dollars. So while the fraudulent circumstances surrounding the three sales in September may have been routine by past standards, what is not as common is D’Emic’s participation in the sales.

Multiple transactions over short time period of time, a familiar cast of characters and the swapping of roles from sale to sale are all warning signs of potential deception, says Evans Prieston. “Any time the same person is involved in multiple transactions over a short period of the time where the borrowers are buying primary residences, it’s a red flag. It is something that should raise a red flag.” Prieston says that swindlers seek out lawyers who may ignore or not notice these signs and not practice due diligence. “Fraudsters are looking for overly trusting and perhaps not so fastidious people. People who permit a situation—fraudsters do that all the time.” Back-to-back sales over a few days allow the transactions to unfold before the deed is recorded in real estate records.

D’Emic refused to speak about the specifics of each transaction, the red flags he may have seen or missed, and his relationship with Morris. But he did talk about how he has almost completed his community service.

For the past month, D’Emic has fulfilled his sentence by driving two nuns from of Our Lady of Perpetual Help convent to their doctor’s appointments. After D’Emic’s sentencing, his wife Andrea approached Sister Madeline DiCarlo and explained her husband’s predicament. The two had previously worked together at a local high school. “Andrea told me about the case and that John had to do community service. She asked if I could use him in any way. He did take me back and forth to the doctor when I had an appointment,” said Sister Madeline DiCarlo. D’Emic has also ferried Sister Teresa Collins to and from her doctor’s appointments twice a week. Sister Collins isn’t sure when D’Emic will return to work, or how much more community service he has left to serve. “He said he could pick me up next week,” she said, and expected to see his maroon Volkswagen on Tuesday morning.

DiCarlo says the D’Emic family has suffered as a result of the charges. “It devastated them,” she says. “They were all very upset about it. I know that Andrea had a hard time gathering money at the beginning to pay the bail. She’s finding it hard now.” DiCarlo said she knows D’Emic is eager to return to work. “He was so down when he lost the job. He was so happy at his job. He’s looking forward to that day when he gets it back.”

But there are already signs that not everyone at the Clerk’s Office would be pleased with D’Emic’s return in light of his crime. “They’re entitled to their opinion” D’Emic said, when asked what his response would be to colleagues who questioned his ability and fitness to perform his job. D’Emic’s law license may also be reviewed. D’Emic says he’s sent notification of his plea to the state’s licensing body, the Supreme Court of the State of New York’s Appellate Division, Second Judicial Department. Attorneys are required to self-report within 30 days of a guilty plea or conviction. The Grievance Committee will investigate whether further action by the court is warranted. The options for addressing misbehavior by an attorney include public censure, suspension or disbarment. Until his fate as the Chief Deputy County Clerk and a lawyer is known, D’Emic will spend his days helping Andrea unload groceries from the car into their brick home, festively adorned with Thanksgiving decorations. And he will transport Sister Teresa to and from physical therapy appointments.

III. A Knock and a Nightmare

Twenty miles away from D’Emic’s Bay Ridge home, Enyonam Tolessi is also waiting, but her circumstances could not be more different. Tolessi, her husband and their two children—6 years old and 8 months—live in a 216 square foot studio apartment within a vast complex of residential buildings in Irvington, New Jersey. The apartment has a kitchenette, a bathroom, and a small closet coming off of the main living area. The living area has a table, used for dining and as a computer station, where Tonny Adjalle, Tolessi’s unemployed husband, searches for work. Beyond the table is a bed. Behind the bed is a crib. In front of the bed is a wardrobe. Next to the wardrobe is a couch, and next to it is a dresser. Across from the bed is a bookshelf.

In 1996, Enyonam Tolessi lost her wallet. This is the only incident she can think of that may have led to her present predicament a decade later. In late 2007, shortly after Dorothy Thomas reported to the DA that she had received foreclosure notices addressed to Tolessi Enyonam, the new owner of her house, two Queens DA detectives banged on the door of Enyonam Tolessi. She was not home, but Adjalle was. They asked for Tolessi Enyonam, and Adjalle said she was his wife. The detectives looked confused. The identification documents belonging to the Tolessi Enyonam who purchased two Queens houses indicated that the buyer was a man. Adjalle confirmed she was a woman and the detectives asked to see a photo. In the days after this visit, Tolessi would be told she was the victim of identity theft that resulted in almost $1 million worth of mortgages being taken out her name, which were in foreclosure. Tolessi went to the courthouse to testify and was shown documents with her name and the photograph of an unidentified man.

Since then, the family’s life has been derailed. Some of Tolessi’s credit cards were suspended, her credit score was decimated, her credit line frozen, her interest rates shot up and JP Morgan Chase, one of the lenders, still continues to call despite Tolessi explaining that she was not the person who bought the house. “I’m crazy right now. I’m crazy. You don’t feel like a normal person,” Tolessi says, rocking her youngest son in her arms and describing the embarrassment of being told by store clerks that her credit card is declined. “It’s been a nightmare up until now,” says Adjalle. They’ve heard nothing from Detective Patrick Dolan, one of the detectives who knocked on their door, since Tolessi went to testify more than a year ago.

The couple has no outside help, and with Adjalle, an IT specialist, out of work, there is no money to pay for legal assistance. Tolessi travels to Manhattan four days a week and works as a home care aid from 7 AM to 7 PM for an elderly woman. “We cannot afford a lawyer right now,” Adjalle says. “To tell you the truth we have no truth at all up to now. We don’t know how the process actually goes. Since we can’t afford a lawyer…and they’d be the only person who’d actually be able to handle the case.”

So what legal recourse do victims like Tolessi have? Prieston paints a grim picture of their options. Banks and mortgage lenders are in the best position to try to recoup their losses. They hire attorneys like Prieston to follow the trail of fraud and identify culpable individuals or companies that may have tangible assets to recover as compensation: settlement agents, brokers, appraisal firms. “You look at the litany of people who participated in the transaction, evaluate their duties and rights and pursue the people who fail to live up to their expectations,” Prieston says. But for a lawyer to take on an individual’s case, they must face a pragmatic reality: in pursuing a case will the plaintiff and the defendant have the opportunity to be compensated? “At the end of the day I have to have someone to pay you and pay me as the lawyer,” Prieston says. For cases like Tolessi’s, with a long list of defendants playing minor and major roles who probably have minimal assets, the pragmatic reality is devastatingly clear: the road to justice will be long, and will probably lead to empty pockets.

Tolessi feeds her baby a bottle and waits for Adjalle and her older son to return from church. “We just come here to look for better,” she says. “And I never thought such a thing would happen to me. Never. Never. I decided to come here to have a better life. Go to school. But my dream never come true. I’m trying to do my best.”

Officers firmly press detainee

Rachel Meeropol’s work is far from over. Two days after her clients, five Muslim plaintiffs held in a Brooklyn prison after 9/11, were awarded $1.26 million from the federal government, Meeropol is at work building a larger class action lawsuit. The Center for Constitutional Rights, which represents other prisoners rounded up in the post 9/11 sweeps, amended its complaint on Monday to include five additional plaintiffs. Meeropol hopes that the case will proceed to trial. “Our end goal is to try to get a determination that what happened was unlawful,” Meeropol says.

The government admitted no liability in this week’s settlement. The new case Meeropol is building would seek to do just that, and hold then-Attorney General John Ashcroft, FBI Director Robert Mueller and former INS Commissioner James Ziglar accountable for the abuses the detainees endured.

What happened during the hundreds of days the plaintiffs spent held in detention was detailed in a report released by the Office of the Inspector General in 2003. After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, illegal immigrants were rounded up in citywide sweeps. The report details the treatment of more than 700 inmates who were held on immigration charges in connection with the investigation of the September 11 attacks. The five plaintiffs in the Turkmen v. Ashcroft case were among the detainees held at Brooklyn’s Administrative Maximum Special Housing Unit.

The report describes conditions in which inmates were strip searched, and locked in their constantly illuminated cells 23 hours a day. It also cites videotapes that document such abuses as including slamming detainees against walls, twisting their arms, as well as the misuse of strip searches and improper use of restraints. It also asserts that meetings between the inmates and their attorneys were illegally taped.

Many prisoners landed in the Brooklyn unit based on anonymous tip-offs, says Meeropol, who explained how her clients were apprehended as a result of these calls. In one instance, shortly after September 11^th, a postal worker called the FBI to report a “suspicious looking” Arab man renting a post office box. Days later, she says, federal agents appeared at the home of the accused, arrested him jailed him in Brooklyn. In another case, a Department of Motor Vehicles employee identified an illegal social security card and reported it to the FBI, which led to the arrest of another one of Meeropol’s clients. A rental truck company owner, she says, recounted renting a truck to three Arab men who appeared to be nervous and gave vague answers, which resulted in imprisonment for another plaintiff. She says the authorities investigated these and countless other tips and made arrests for immigration violations which led to extended imprisonment as the claims were investigated.

“They were swept up on the street for no reason and held as terrorists,” says Meeropol. “They were harassed and kept from practicing their religion. You can’t get over an experience like that, even when it ends.”

“Today’s settlement is a step along the road of holding government officials accountable, and acting as a deterrent” for similar activity, Meeropol continued. She also hopes that after seven years of negotiations, the settlement will allow her clients, who now reside in Egypt, France and Canada, to move on with their lives. For now, Meeropol’s will continue working towards a class action trial that will determine, once and for all, if the government should be held accountable for the extended imprisonment and potential abuse of hundreds of illegal immigrants.

Attendance is taken at the ballroom dance class at the Bay Ridge Jewish Center. The teacher is John Benanti, a man who hyperarticulates words, pronouncing each consonant with precision. He claps his hands. “Okay my dear friends. Before we begin the fox trot, let us first review what we learned last week. The rumba. Now recall that we had our Cuban walk.” Benanti swishes his hips and takes a few paces across the linoleum floor. “Now you are not going to apply a Latin motion to the fox trot. If you do, you will look ridiculous.”

Before he retired, Benanti was an administrative assistant for top-notch executives. Given his precision and scrutinizing eye, it is not difficult to imagine him as an exceptionally gifted secretary.

The class is gathered in two straight lines, divided by men and women. They stare at their teacher, concentrating on his motions and footsteps. He demonstrates the three step, and the pupils follow his lead, pointing their toes and progressing forward. Benanti moves on to describe the natural and reverse turns. It’s a challenging concept and he calls upon his assistant. She has been dancing with Benanti for the past three years, attending nearly every class he teaches at various senior centers throughout Brooklyn. Benanti transitions to the rumba. He and Evelyn bow to greet each other. He takes Evelyn’s hand and they deftly work through the steps. Spinning her forward and back. “Gentlemen, your hand will be going toward the young lady’s tummy,” Benanti says, as Evelyn’s abdomen rounds the bend of her partner’s palm. “You have to know how to lead her and give her the proper resistance or she will go on and on forever.” Benanti thanks Evelyn for her assistance, and she returns to the group. He refers to Evelyn as his protégé. As the night progresses she will approach dancing couples, interrupt their efforts, demonstrate the correct step, and then critique their next effort.

The students begin to mimic the steps. They pause, whisper to themselves, start over and count aloud. Benanti makes the rounds, shuttling between the three women who out number the available men for the evening. “Take a deep breath. I know you are working very hard,” he says. Sweaters come off and the dancers recommit

The class is ready to begin. “Posture! No hands in the pockets. Nice and tall like in ‘Dancing with the Stars.’” He approaches a woman who is biting her lip in concentration. “My dear friend, you need to bend your knees.” He interrupts the dancing. “There is no Cuban motion. We do not stick out our buttocks,” Benanti says, thrusting his behind out. “No, they are tucked it.” He beckons Evelyn to demonstrate the proper technique. “Now, there is body contact, as you will see. I’m not getting fresh with Evelyn. She’s known me a long time.”

A woman pipes up and asks about the rhythm. “I’m going to get to the rhythm next my friend. You first learn how to crawl, then you learn how to walk.” The dancers pair off and Benanti gestures with delight towards a woman who’s mastered the moves. “Look at Karen. She’s gliding…gliding!” Another, who is now doing as well, has furrowed her brow and she stumbles over her feet. “Come here my dear,” Benanti says, reaching a hand out towards her. “You look totally confused.”

They pause for refreshments and gather around a table with a box of cookies, five cans of soda and instant coffee. Revived, they return to their places.

Benanti leaps over to his boom box and announces the next song, “Strangers in the Night.” The instrumental version comes on, and plays throughout the rest of the evening, on repeat. The students configure themselves in different pairings throughout the night. Some couples gracefully circumnavigate the light lavender room. Others exchange tense words with one another. “I am on the right foot. You should be over there, starting with the left.” Sometimes they sigh, shake themselves out and start again.

As the session concludes, Benanti gathers his students in a circle and asks for a show of hands. “My friends, how many of you feel that you know more than you did when you first arrived.” Arms extend. “I am so proud of you. You have no idea.”

By Mara Zepeda

The theater at Bay Ridge Preparatory School doubles as a basketball court. A dozen students congregate in the cavernous room. Some girls-black knee socks askew-dangle their legs off the edge of the stage. Boys loosen their neckties and slouch in folding chairs arranged in a semicircle. Other students are splayed on the wood floor mumbling lyrics under their breath. It’s fall auditions for Carpe Diem!, the high school thespian and music club.

The music director beckons a girl to sing. A friend drags her by the wrist to the center of the circle. The performer wears brown Ugg boots, a gray cardigan, a furry elastic ponytail holder, a charm necklace and pink lip gloss. It is the same outfit that Britney Spears wore in her music video “Hit Me Baby One More Time.” The girl begins to sing without accompaniment. Her voice is quiet. It quivers.

“Sorry,” she says, and starts over. At times more air than sound escapes her lips. She falters off key and all of her classmates’ eyes dart to the floor. Her face reddens.

The friend, overcome by the performance, wheezes with laughter. She sputters, covers her mouth with both hands and squeals, “Oh my God!” then flees the auditorium and melts into hysterics in the hallway. The singer hurries back her seat. “You’re a soprano!” the music director announces, and calls the next student to come forward.

Another girl rises and takes out her cell phone and thumbs at the keys. She half sings and half talks a contemporary pop rock song. She is reading the lyrics off of the small screen, and pauses each time she has to scroll through the text. The director scribbles in her notebook.

“What does soprano mean?” a voice calls out.

A boy jumps up, fumbles to knot his tie and whispers in his teacher’s ear. He says he is nervous. He agrees to audition but only if he is joined by the other young men in the auditorium, and only if he can sing the R & B hit “Soul Man.” He divides his iPod’s earbuds. One sticks out of his ear, the other is in the ear of a boy about a foot taller, who stoops and pushes up his glasses. A group of five boys haphazardly start in on the song at different times. “Good loving, I got a truck load,” they sing. The others’ voices recede and the boy is left to sing alone. He closes his eyes, shimmies his hips and belts out the chorus with gravelly flourishes. He’s met with high fives all around.

Up next is a sturdy girl with a red satin ribbon planted on one side of her head. What appears to be a black and red feather caresses her cheek. She has chosen “Con te partirò,” an aria made famous by Andrea Bocelli. “My Italian is for donkey lips,” she says.

She injects her performance with operatic embellishments, aiming to hit and hold the high notes and making an exaggerated, large oval with her mouth. “She’s really good,” one girl whispers. At the conclusion of her audition, despite the resounding applause, the singer doubts the quality of her performance and, with a furrowed brow, asks to repeat it with the music director in private.

An unassuming classmate in a white polo embroidered with the letters BRP takes her turn. She performs “Home” from the Broadway production of “Beauty and the Beast.”

“Is this home? Is this where I should learn to be happy” she sings while gripping her gray pleated skirt. Her voice rings out like a clear, strong bell. She sounds like a child singing a lullaby. No word is held too long.

“Try to find something good in this tragic place, just in case I should stay here forever.” There is a pause, and then the students shower the girl with pats on the back and clapping that echoes to the net at the other end of the court.

The News

The minute Oslen Hill saw the uniforms at his door, he knew.  He had served in the military.  No words were necessary.  His son, Kevin O. Hill, was dead.  He was a 23-year-old soldier from Brooklyn deployed in Afghanistan.

Soon after the officers left, the phone started ringing in Oslen Hill’s home in Raleigh, North Carolina.  He picked it up to hear his wife, Mahalia Hill, screaming on the other end.  Two officers had also come to her door, in East New York, Brooklyn.  Two synchronized knocks five hundred miles apart; the same news.

Hill tried to call his daughters, Chinyere and Shantel, but he couldn’t reach them.  They had gone out shopping that Sunday and hadn’t heard the news yet.  On the bus ride back, his oldest daughter, Chinyere, called.  “The way I answered the phone, my voice, she knew that something was wrong,” he said.  “Having to tell her on the phone, and not being able to hold her.  And to hear them scream, without being able to hold them.  That just made it even worse.”

Hill has worked for the Postal Service for the past 18 years and recently relocated from New York to North Carolina, where he wanted to move his family.  After speaking to them on the phone on Sunday, Hill got in his car and drove straight to New York. “Nine hours, driving and crying, driving and crying,” he said. He arrived in Brooklyn early Monday morning, October 5.

Piecing Together the Facts

Kevin died on Sunday, October 4.

Kevin's family keeps this portrait on a table of framed photographs in their East New York home. Photo: Baynes/Brooklyn Ink

He was very close to his mother, Mahalia, and would call her every week to check in on her.  The last time they spoke was on the Tuesday before Kevin died.  He asked how she was doing, if she was going to the movies anytime soon, and if she was going to start working again.  He always asked how his sisters were doing.  Just before saying goodbye, he mentioned, “There are people in this unit who got killed,” his mother recounted.  It was the only time he told her anything related to the war.

“He never wanted his mom to worry because, of course she was worried.  He tried his best not to tell her anything really.  Anything concerning war,” his father said. “He never talked about what he was doing, and we never really pushed it because, in our eyes, people who go to combat don’t like talking about combat.”

The Hill family is still trying to piece together what happened to Kevin.  According to the Department of Defense, he died at Contingency Outpost Dehanna in Afghanistan when enemy forces attacked his unit.  Officials from the Army informed the family that Kevin died while he was out on patrol on a road near the Pakistan border.

Conflicting stories of what happened have shaken their prior assumptions.  The family understood Kevin to be working as a prison guard in Afghanistan.  They assumed this meant he would be stationary and shielded from most of the action and danger.  “Being a guard and being out there searching for IED’s in the middle of nowhere, I can’t understand,” his father said.  “But these are the stories they gave.”

Army officials told the family that Kevin was shot in the head, his father said.  He added, “I don’t know if that’s to make us feel better.  Because that sounds real neat and tidy.  No suffering.  But then, at the same time, we’re having a closed casket.”

One of Kevin’s friends from his platoon had called the family and said that there were some explosions.  “‘So Kevin, he’s not all here.’  That’s what he said,” recounted Chinyere, Kevin’s older sister.

“I don’t know whether he suffered or not, and that’s what kills me.  In terms of details, him being shot before or after.  I just try not to think about it because it’s too much, too much,” his father said, his voice breaking.  On the table in front of him stood a large bouquet of flowers with a card reading: “I’m sorry that I could not bring Kevin home.  A piece of me died that day along with him.  Know that you and your family are in our thoughts.  Love and prayers.  Sincerely, 1Lt. Patrick C. Benitez.”

Next to the flowers sits a letter on army letterhead detailing the funeral expenses covered under Kevin’s contract.

About Kevin

Kevin Hill was born on June 14, 1986 in Fayetteville, North Carolina, while his father, Oslen, was stationed at Fort Bragg.  The family followed Oslen to Germany for a short time and later moved to Bushwick, where Kevin spent most of his childhood.  The Hills didn’t want their children hanging out on the streets.  So they spent time at home, playing Nintendo games like Donkey Kong.  The children also played with a neighbor, Darryl Hamilton, who became Kevin’s best friend.  Darryl later recalled how they would all go to the movies together, like an extended family.

When Kevin was 14, his family was facing financial difficulties, and he and his sister, Shantel, moved in with their aunt, Sophia McCarthy.  McCarthy was twenty years older than Kevin’s mother, Mahalia, and the first in her family to move to New York from Jamaica.

“His aunt is so protective of him, she loves him to death,” said Kevin’s father.  “She never had any kids.  So her sister’s kids are pretty much her kids.”  Once, she asked Kevin to go out and buy some milk.  He ran into a friend and lost track of time.  He returned with the milk half-an-hour later to find police cars outside his aunt’s house.  In a panic, she had called 911.

“If you want to have a son, you should have Kevin.  He was such a good boy,” McCarthy said.  “He never wore his pants hanging low.  He went to school every single day.  He never drank any bit of alcohol.”

Kevin, far right, and two friends — Darryl Hamilton, center, and Huewayne Watson — on a recent trip to Washington D.C. before Kevin was deployed to Afghanistan. Photo: Baynes/Brooklyn Ink

Kevin seldom spoke about himself.  “He was always a very quiet kid,” his father said.  He was not the sort to push himself in class at John Dewey High School.  “He was the kid that would do the minimum,” his father said.  If 70 was a passing grade, “he would do 71 or 72.”  His older sister, Chinyere was the opposite.  So, for Oslen Hill, it was a surprise when Kevin started to work hard to go to college.  “Of course we expected her to go to college,” he said of Chinyere.  “And we were hoping he would go.  But then it turned out he did.  That was a pleasant surprise.”

Kevin held jobs at Nathan’s hot dog stand and the Cyclone’s baseball stadium on Coney Island.  The summer after high school, he worked at a law firm.  He rented his own apartment in Bushwick, but he spent little time there.  “He just worked and came home and hung out with us,” his father said.  He would take his mother and sisters to the movies or out to eat.

After graduating from John Dewey High School in 2004, Kevin went straight to a four-year degree program at Monroe College in the Bronx.  He got a job with the Transportation Security Administration as a security agent at J.F.K. Airport.  He would wake before dawn and leave the house by 4 a.m. to get to work.  After work, he would travel up to the Bronx for classes.  “He always put school first, all year round, to graduate a little early.  Summer time, winter time, he had a class no matter what,” said his sister, Chinyere.

Kevin graduated in June of 2008 with a B.A. in criminal justice.  The whole extended family, from Canada and Florida, converged on Brooklyn to celebrate.  They went to Red Lobster for dinner.

Graduating from college was a proud tradition in the Hill family.  “Except for me.  I broke it,” said Kevin’s father.  When his high school sweetheart, Kevin’s mother, Mahalia, became pregnant with their oldest child, Oslen Hill decided to join the military.  He had been working odd jobs at the time and decided that he needed more stability for his kids.

The Decision to Enlist

Kevin did not tell his family when he enlisted in the Army.  Before joining, he mentioned the idea.  When everyone, including his sisters, discouraged him, he stopped talking about it.

“None of us wanted him to go into the military.  Well not in the Army anyway because I was in the Army in the first Gulf War, and I knew what war was like.  And so I didn’t want my son experiencing combat like I did,” said Oslen Hill.  He told his son about the constant fear, of not knowing where the next bullet, mine, or sniper was hidden.

When Kevin stopped talking about the idea, they assumed that was the end of it.  “But, of course, it wasn’t because he still joined.  And when everyone found out, it was too late.  He was already in,” his father said.

The decision was a mark of Kevin’s independence.  “He liked to do things on his own,” said his mother, all the way back to when he was a baby playing with his toys.  “He liked support, for us to be there for him, but he liked to do things for himself.”

Sometimes, when Kevin was young, they would go to army exhibitions to watch his father jump out of planes.  He was a paratrooper in the 82^nd Airborne Division. “Maybe that’s why Kevin insisted on the Army,” Hill said.  “Because he had choices, I mean, any branch.  He could have gone to the Navy or the Air Force, the National Guard, but he chose the Army.  I can only say that that’s what he wanted to do.”

Oslen Hill holds a college graduation photograph of his son, Kevin, who joined the Army after school and was killed in Afghanistan this month. Photo: Baynes/Brooklyn Ink

Sitting on the couch a week after Kevin’s death, Oslen Hill clutched onto his favorite picture of Kevin.  It was one of him in college cap and gown.  “Kevin was more than a soldier. He actually did something with his life prior to being a soldier.  That’s not all he was.  I’m proud of him being a soldier, but I’m more proud of him for being a graduate,” he said.  “It means more to me.”

Kevin told his mother his ideas of becoming a detective.  He also mentioned to his father the idea of opening up a law firm with his best friend Darryl Hamilton: Hill and Hamilton, Partners at Law.  Both friends were majoring in criminal justice in college, and Darryl had his sights set on law school.  “Kevin was supposed to be a lawyer,” said his Aunt Sophia.

In 2008, Kevin sat down with Lisa Whiteside, Professor of Criminal Justice at Monroe College, to discuss his career options.  But his mind was made up: he was going to join the military.  “Are you sure this is something you really want to do?” Whiteside recalls asking.  He was sure.  His father and grandfather had served in the military, and he wanted to do as they had done.

“I wanted to be certain that he knew what the consequences were,” Whiteside said.  “I explained to him that there were other things that he could do with a degree in criminal justice.  He could have gotten in with any law enforcement agency.  There were opportunities short of him going into the military.”  Whiteside listed Hill’s options: the FBI, the Secret Service, the DEA, the NYPD, corrections.

After graduating in the summer of 2008, Kevin told Darryl that he wanted to work for the Secret Service, but he didn’t feel that he had enough work experience.  He thought that military service would help his career, Darryl said.  Kevin joined the Army on September 16, 2008.

Kevin’s father suspects he encountered military recruiters at Monroe College.  The military recruiting process is “ruthless,” he said.  Recruiters have to fill certain quotas and particular jobs.  “If Kevin had spoken to me, I could have steered him.  I could have told him what jobs to take and what jobs not to take… He could have taken just about any job that was offered,” Hill said.  “He could have worked in the legal department.”

Although everyone in the family was worried when they learned that Kevin had enlisted, they decided it was best not to frighten him but rather to support him.  They held on to the hope that someone with his level of education would be steered towards an office job and away from combat.

Kevin, said his father, was “not a violent person or anything of the sort.  I just feared for him because he was not a fighter kind of person.  He was a gentle person, and so I didn’t foresee combat for him.”

As Kevin was deciding whether to enlist during the summer of 2008, the debate over U.S. presence in Iraq and Afghanistan was fading from the public discourse.  By June, conventional wisdom had solidified around the idea that President George W. Bush’s “surge” in Iraq had succeeded.  The war effort was “on a firmer foundation” because of America’s increased troop presence there, one military analyst wrote in an August Washington Post column.

When Kevin finally made his decision in September, news from the region was mixed.  Early in the month, President Bush announced that the United States would pull 8,000 troops out of Iraq in early 2009.  At the same time, the president said he would be increasing troop levels in Afghanistan by around 4,500 troops.  The announcement drew little attention initially.  But over the next few weeks, the increasingly grim news from Afghanistan began to overwhelm the encouraging news from Iraq.

By mid-September, however, the nation was focused on an entirely different worry: the quickly deteriorating economy.  On September 15, Lehman Brothers collapsed and Wall Street went into a panic not seen since 1929.  Kevin enlisted the next day.

By October 1, General David Petraeus, days away from taking over the United States Central Command, admitted to reporters that insurgents were gaining ground in Afghanistan.  A week later, news leaked that intelligence agencies believed the country was heading into a “downward spiral.”

By February 2009, Kevin had finished basic training at Fort Carson, Colorado, and was deployed to Iraq.  The family threw him a send-off with barbecue chicken and his favorite, lasagna.  They all went to play video arcade games on 42^nd Street and saw a movie through 3D glasses.

By April 2009, Kevin was relocated from Iraq to Afghanistan.

The Last Visit

Kevin came home on leave this past August.  His Aunt Sophia thought he looked worn down when he arrived.  But after three days at home, she said, “He looked so different, rested and peaceful.”  He took his mother and sisters out for lunch and to the movies.

Kevin's younger sister, Shantel Hill, displays her brother's Army unit photograph. Photo: Baynes/Brooklyn Ink

He also traveled down to Washington, D.C. with Darryl Hamilton and one of Darryl’s friends.  He had never been to the Nation’s Capitol and wanted to see the Lincoln Memorial, the White House, the Frederick Douglass Museum, and other sites.  He was always interested in history and museums; his favorites were the Brooklyn Museum and the American Museum of Natural History.

“He seemed like he was ready to be home,” Darryl said.  “He was happy to be home.”

While others thought of him only as a quiet young man, Darryl saw him as a playful person who told a lot of jokes.  Yet, in Washington, D.C., he seemed “kind of distant” to Darryl.  “Like he had a lot of stuff on his mind, like his mind was racing,” Darryl said.  “He told me he had seen a dead body in front of him.”

Darryl and Kevin talked about planning something for the next time he came back.  Kevin told Darryl he wanted to buy a car, a Chrysler 300.  He said that his tour would be ending soon and that Darryl should come and visit him when he was stationed back in Colorado.

The most recent pictures of Kevin are from his trip to D.C.  They are still on his digital camera in the family’s apartment.  One picture shows Kevin at the World War II Memorial, standing in front of the New York column.  Another shows the three men smiling in front of the White House.

The Army

Kevin Hill died as the president and his advisers are once again debating U.S. strategy in Afghanistan.  The debate turns on two crucial points: whether or not to increase troops by as many as 40,000, and where in Afghanistan the brunt of U.S. forces should be based.

Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, America’s top commander in the country, believes the United States should not hunt down the Taliban in rural parts of the country.  Our forces “cannot be strong everywhere,” he wrote in a highly publicized assessment last August.  Instead, McChrystal argues, American troops should leave remote parts of the county to focus more on protecting civilians in high-population areas.  The “key terrain,” he believes, “is generally where the population lives and works” – far from the small town in rural Dehanna where Kevin Hill was on patrol when he was killed.

Kevin’s father knows that this war is different from the one he fought.  “We knew the enemy in the first Gulf War.  In this war, there’s no one in uniforms to distinguish who’s who.  Everyone’s in robes,” he said.  “It’s a totally different war.”

He does not believe that President Obama should send any more troops to Afghanistan.  And not because of Kevin.  “Until Pakistan steps up their responsibility and stops making the border of Pakistan safe havens,” he said.  “It will be absolutely useless.”

Kevin’s body is currently at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware.  His memorial service will be held at John J. McManus & Sons Funeral Home at 4601 Avenue N in Flatlands, Brooklyn at 7 p.m. on Friday, October 16, 2009.  He will be buried on Saturday morning at Cypress Hills Cemetery in Queens.

Kevin Hill marks Brooklyn’s 25th casualty in the Middle East

by Sarah Portlock

Kevin Hill is one of 25 Americans from Brooklyn who have died in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan since May 2003, according to the Department of Defense. They served in the Army, Navy and Marine Corps and ranged in age from 20 to 51. They were killed when improvised explosive devices or rocket-propelled grenades detonated near their vehicles; or when the vehicle hit a landmine’ or from firefights. One soldier, Julian Melo, was one of at least 13 soldiers killed on Dec. 21, 2004, in one of the war’s deadliest attacks when a dining facility was attacked in Mosul, Iraq.

Their obituaries recall men who volunteered to serve for a variety of reasons: to honor their fathers or grandfathers who fought in their generations’ wars; as a way to serve their adopted country after emigrating here from Nigeria, Jamaica, or Triniad and Tobago; to find a new family to replace the one they had lost. Two men – 1st Lt. Daniel Farkas, 42, and Sgt. Manny Hornedo, 27 – volunteered in the Army National Guard. Farkas, of East Midwood, was a New York Police Department lieutenant, and Hornedo, who lived in Sunset Park, was a security manager at a midtown Manhattan retail store.

Brooklyn’s war dead are from neighborhoods as diverse as the roster of the fallen: Bushwick, Canarsie, Crown Heights, East New York, Flatbush, Marine Park, Midwood, Park Slope, Sunset Park and Williamsburg. They left behind wives, young children, new brides and fiancées.

Spec. Segun Akintade, 34, came to New York from Lagos, Nigeria in 1997 and was studying for his bachelors degree in computer science at the New York City College of Technology in Downtown Brooklyn. Pfc. Rayshawn Johnson came of age in the city’s foster care system and found a new family in the Army and a Flatbush street at the corner of Maple Street and Albany Avenue has been named for him. Lance Cpl. Julian Brennan, 25, was an actor who graduated from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and joined the Marines to honor his grandfather, who earned the Navy Cross at Iwo Jima during World War II.