Sunday, March 5, 2006

Activists attended an "Open House"

On Sunday, March 5, 2006, activists attended an "Open House" publicized and hosted by Harlan Goldberg, Real Estate Agent with Prudential: Douglas Elliman Real Estate.  Harlan represents Robert Schaffer, of The Vertical Group one of the last companies that continues to make a market for LSRI (aka Huntingdon Life Sciences).  Robert is trying to sell his $1,199,000.00 apartment at 200 W. Houston Street in New York City's trendy Greenwich Village neighborhood. 

http://www.elliman.com/Listing.aspx?ListingID=728564&SearchType
=Broker_Current&BID=HEG

Just to remind you, Robert Schaffer is the broker who lied to activists two weeks ago when he denied that The Vertical Group was making a market for LSRI.  At first, Rob swore that his firm had no relationship with LSRI, several minutes later he tried to convince everyone that he was on our side because he was actually selling LSRI stock short.  Rob, you can't have it both ways. Either you can deny that you trade the stock or you can claim that you are selling it short, but you cannot claim both.

An educational outreach table was set up in front of Rob's apartment building and a peaceful legal demonstration was held.  When Harlan passed us, he told us that he had killed 3 puppies on his way to the open house.  This gave us our first clue as to what warped, twisted Harlan finds funny.  As he looked at the graphic posters of bloody mutilated animals, he laughed and made fun of the activists.  An hour later, after watching activists speak earnestly to many of the people who had attended the open house, Harlan was no longer laughing. Seems he had lost his sense of humor!

At first Harlan called the police and made the false accusation that activists were accosting passersby and that people were being assaulted on the street.  The police came a runnin' and got there just in time to witness a well dressed, articulate Manhattan couple drop a large bill in the donation jar as activists explained why we were there.  When a fuming Harlan stormed out of the building, he confronted activists long enough to call us all "F**CKING SCUMBAGS". He then tried to convince the NYPD that we were the ones attacking people and using foul language. 

Luckily we had our video camera recording the entire time and were able to demonstrate that it was Harlan who was engaging activists and using gutter language.  Schaffer also called the police making the same accusation.  Police pointed out to Schaffer that his accusations were greatly suspect, as he wasn't even there during the demo.  Harlan refused to make eye contact with peaceful protesters as he skulked back into the empty apartment after being told that our protest was legal and there was nothing that could be done to stop it.

We often wonder how a person can look at the graphic images of bloodied mutilated animals and laugh. We guess that it is the same kind of person who makes baseless accusations, when he is guilty of that behavior himself.

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