Talk:Sam Mizrahi

Rfc: Reworking the Khavari lawsuits section

I am proposing the following content to rework this section to make the content more succinct, remove unrelated paragraphs about the Khavaris and remove repeated information.

In June 2016 Khashayar Khavari, son of Iranian fugitive [Mahmoud Reza Kahvari](http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-05-24/iran-hangs-man-convicted-of-2.6-billion-bank-scam/5475958) and his brother in-law filed a lawsuit against Sam Mizrahi. Khavari claimed that because of their $14.2M contribution to purchase land for 181 Davenport and 133 Hazelton [17], two condo projects that Mizrahi is building, he is also owed stakes in other projects that Mizrahi’s companies are building including several buildings on Hazelton Avenue, a synagogue, and a 50 percent stake in "The One", which will be Canada's tallest tower..[17][1] He is seeking at least C$105 million ($81 million) in damages. Mizrahi denies their claims to ownership in the additional projects and has filed a countersuit, seeking at least C$50 million for breach of contract, negligence, intimidation, conspiracy to cause economic harm, and defamation, among other grievances.[17] Though Mizrahi had said none of the money from the developments would be distributed until the two properties were finished, he has agreed to write a $7 million cheque to the Khavari family.[2] The final outcome of the lawsuits are pending in Ontario but there have been two rulings so far.[17] On March 24, 2016, the court dismissed a motion, described as an “attempt to fast track the case”[17], on the part of the Khavaris to have Mizrahi return shares of five corporations held by Mizrahi, ruling "Khash has transferred all of his rights of ownership in the Shares to MEI [Mizrahi]. What remains under the Trust Agreement is essentially no more than a contractual obligation on the part of MEI to re-transfer the Shares at a future point in time".[39] Most recently, on August 17, 2016, the judge presiding over the legal dispute dismissed the Khavari’s motion for an inspector to be assigned to investigate Mizrahi's finances, awarding Mizrahi’s side with $373,860.25 in costs and writing "... I am further of the view that, in all of the circumstances, it would not be appropriate to appoint an inspector."[40] Aimerlamer (talk) 17:49, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

@Aimerlamer: Hi, i agree that this section needs to be reworked. As a matter of fact the same section on the Khavari's page is far shorter...

BTW: I noticed you made an edit to make the lead section more like a lead instead of a collection of sentences, that's great. But please make sure next time to leave a comment about the edit.

Ntb613 (talk) 18:13, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

Neutrality

There is a dispute about the content of this bio, illustrated by this edit. I have semi-protected the article for a month. Please discuss the addition/removal of these controversial details, presenting high-quality reliable sources to support your position. Fences&Windows 10:29, 25 June 2016 (UTC)

I have changed the introductory line of this article to better reflect the reputation of this living person as per this recent credible media source. I see there are some other examples of vandalism throughout the edit history of this article that have been corrected by senior editor Ntb613 Truthseekr67 (talk) 19:19, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

There are several points that get deleted by several users which are referenced from articles in Globe and Mail, Bloomberg and Financial post. Here I provide my reasoning for including these sentences, please provide your reasoning until a consensus is reached.

* In the article from financial post here, it clearly says that Mr. Mizrahi has not received any post secondary education in the "Iranian connection" section :"Like the Khavaris, Mizrahi is from Iran, moving to Canada with his family in 1977 when he was six years old. He never attended post-secondary school and describes himself as an entrepreneur, running DoveCorp Enterprises Inc., a high-end dry-cleaning company until 2007 when it filed for restructuring and its assets were sold". However user "Ntb613" believes that including this fact that Mr. Mizrahi never attended post-secondary school is biased. I don't believe that this is the case.

* This sentence "In his birthplace Iran, Mizrahi is known for his relationship with former Iranian banker and current fugitive, Mahmoud Reza Khavari,who was involved in "the biggest fraud scheme in Iran’s history"" has been contested several times by user Ntb613 which he believes is biased. The first part of the sentence clearly says Mizrahi is known in Iran for his relationship with Khavari, not Canada. Searching his name in his native language Persian (سام میزراهی) , clearly shows that the only articles found on the internet about Mr. Mizrahi in Persian are about his relationship with Mr. Khavari. Almost every major Iranian newspaper had an article about Mr. Mizrahi and his relationship with Mr. Khavari, whereas prior to this matter Mr. Mizrahi was not known in Iran, although he was born there.The second part of the sentence "The biggest fraud scheme in Iran's history" is also contested several times by user Ntb613 and a few others, whereas this is a direct quote from the financial post reference "The person on the other end of the line, Mizrahi said in court filings, was Mahmoud Reza Khavari, former chairman of Iran’s largest state-owned lender, wanted since 2011 for his alleged involvement in the biggest fraud scheme in Iran’s history. He was also the father of Mizrahi’s business partner and a key source of capital for the developer’s two condo projects, according to the documents." If there is any doubt that there was a fraud or was it the largest, this reference clearly acknowledges both fact.

Please provide your reasoning to avoid edit wars. Please do not label my edits as vandalism if it contains facts that might not benefit Mr. Mizrahi's business. Masterofthename (talk) 00:50, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

@Masterofthename: I appreciate that you finally joined the conversation on the Talk Page! Please see response below:

* The sentence about the education is properly sourced hence i didn't delete it earlier today. There is still an issue though of potential WP:UNDUE. Furthermore i am not viewing this sentance as negative or positive, the potential problem with it is, does it belong in enciclopedia? For example if you had to describe Mizrahi in 1000 words, would this sentance be important enough to be included? Do you see what i am saying?

* If in Persian Language, majority mentions of his name are in relation to the Khavari family, it might belong in the Persian edition of this page (سام مزراحی) . But in English sources majority of news coverage is about real estate and recent coverage is about "The One" tower he is building. And so while the whole lawsuit definitely belongs on the page. It doesn't belong in the lead section. I live in Toronto, Canada and he is known for his real estate developments and for Dove Cleaners, not for his relationship to Khavari's. This makes it sound like this is the most famous thing about him which is false and in my opinion contravenes WP:BLP, WP:NPOV and WP:UNDUE.

*To highlight the hypocrisy of trying to add info about Khavari into the lead section of another person's wiki page. It is reported that Khavari was from inner circle of Iranian president Ahmadinejad, yet i don't see Khavari mentioned in the article

* The second part of the sentence "The biggest fraud scheme in Iran's history" is even a bigger issue, i am not arguing that it's not sourced or not verifiable, it definitely belongs on Khavari's page, but not on Mizrachi's page. Mizrachi's page is about Mizrachi.

* Consensus has to be built before a something is added to the article, and if no consensus is found it shouldn't be inserted in that form. I have no relationship to Mizrahi, i am challenging you because as a wikipedia editor with over 7 years of experience, what you are doing seems wrong. So i am going to undo your last edit please review my response and continue the conversation.

Please review these Wikipedia rules:

* Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons

* Wikipedia:Neutral point of view

* Undue Weight

Ntb613 (talk) 03:46, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

Hi, I think user Ntb613 is right. 138.68.139.95 (talk) 04:16, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

Well I have been on Wikipedia long enough to know about the rules and policies and most of the criticism was not about rules but the fact that you "felt" that they did not belong to the page. In answer to your responses :

• I don't see how you could be against the sentence about education. If Mr. Mizrahi held a PhD from Harvard University would you say it does not belong to his page? Any article about any living person mentions their education, this sentence is properly referenced from financial post. It should not be deleted.

• Mizrahi holds Iranian citizenship by birth, so Persian references are relevant here. If you write about an Italian person would you consider any reference from Italian sources as belonging only to Italian Wikipedia? of course not. Hence since he is only known in Iran about his relationship with Khavari, I don't think this sentence has a problem. However I can see that it might not belong to the top of the page.

• The biggest fraud scheme in Iran's history is relevant to Mr. Mizrahi's page. Part of the funding for Mr. Mizrahi's projects seems to have originated from the banking fraud in Iran. Any article on any construction project or a real estate mogul on Wikipedia talks about those who finance the projects.

In the end , this whole relationship with Mr. Khavari just shows the whole hypocrisy,lies and corruption of the governments of Iran, Israel and Canada. How crazy it is that the head of the largest bank in Iran had commercial ties to a Persian Jewish person in Canada with strong ties to the state of Israel for years, and money in order of millions (or maybe billions) have been transferred. None of this would have been possible with corruption at very top levels. The fact that Mr. Khavari and Mr. Mizrahi have none of their assets frozen and do not have CSIS interrogations, just shows that very powerful people at the top are protecting the matter.

And there is no way that Mr. Mizrahi did not know about this. Two young Iranian guys in their 20's approached him with huge sums of money. It is impossible that he did not know where the source of money was.

Israeli's also monitor these kinds of international large transactions originating from Iran. It is impossible that the government of Israel did not catch this. Iranian government, with all of its primitive technology, has a very powerful Intelligence apparatus. It is also impossible that they did not know Mr. Khavari's relationship with Mr. Mizrahi (who is an active supporter of their supposed "archenemy" Israel). Canadian banks also have frozen accounts belonging to Iranian students on many occasions for receiving funds in the order of a few thousands from Iran and government of Canada has strict sanctions against Iran . There is no way that Canadian government did not know about this.

Apparently they all are "frenemies" behind the scenes and some are trying hard to keep this a secret. Masterofthename (talk) 04:52, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

Recent revisions Nov 2016 to BLP

I was a bit surprised to see the recent edits to this biography of a living person: Sam Mizrahi. The edits were done on points that had already been arbitrated and settled through consensus. I also note the previous edit war between masterofthename and NTtb613.

I also note the following characteristics of the Orange Relish account that performed these contentious edits:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Orange_Relish - the account is less than a month old and its only historical edits are to this Sam Mizrahi page
• The edits are very similar in wording and style to the previous edits that the masterofthename account did, which received a 3 edit rule warning about a month ago

As for the points:

• First masterofthename and now Orange Relish have repeatedly tried to edit that Sam Mizrahi has a Muslim mother. The sources that follow the statement do not support this. It says nothing about his mother being Muslim here: http://sunnybrook.ca/foundation/content/?page=donorspotlight&pg=2. It actually directly says Sam Mizrahi was "born to hardworking Jewish parents, Shamoil and Ziba Mizrahi" here. Unless there is a new source that contradicts that, then this point should be considered resolved and the truthful line should be reverted.
• There was no citation provided that Sam Mizrahi is Israeli. We know he is Canadian and of Iranian descent. There is a lot of citations for that point.
• Sam Mizrahi is known for developing The One. Toronto Life describes him as "the developer who snagged Toronto's most coveted piece of real estate". http://torontolife.com/real-estate/toronto-50-most-influential-2015-sam-mizrahi/. This seems to be what all the press about him is about. https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&gl=ca&tbm=nws&authuser=0&q=sam+mizrahi I think it belongs in the infobox to assist users.
• The uncited line that "Mizrahi identifies himself as Jewish" is misleading. He is Jewish. His parents are Jewish. I found many sources about how he is a major Jewish philanthropist. How much more Jewish do you want someone to be?
• Apple Store at The One - on this subject the article cited says "Real estate insiders say they’ve heard this rumor and believe it to be true." http://torontolife.com/real-estate/is-toronto-getting-a-new-apple-store-an-investigation/ The article speculates about other possibilities but it clearly says this one is likely to be true and the others ones are not according to experts. Again, we need another source if we want to say something other than the conclusion in the article. Please provide them here.

I have notified Orange Relish that these edits are being contested. I am also notifying the editor who did the warning and page protection earlier. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Truthseekr67 (talk • contribs) 19:36, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

Truthseekr67 (talk) 21:06, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

Reverted to last version with consensus - feel free to discuss here, do not edit war

Truthseekr67 (talk) 20:45, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

Addition of irrelevant facts to page

I have undone several edits made by Aimerlamer on March 16, 2017 that added +796 characters to the page as the information added is not sufficiently relevant to Mizrahi to deem inclusion on the page.Mepo233 (talk) 13:55, 30 March 2017 (UTC)

The addition to the page was not only adequately sourced by reliable, unbiased media, the information adds to Mizrahi's background and values as a developer and therefore is sufficiently relevant to be included in the page. Re-added the information that was removed from the page.Aimerlamer (talk) 21:51, 30 March 2017 (UTC)

Source provided is not reliable or legitimate journalism

@JBernardCA Your edit would have been helpful because it’s new and previously unfound but I think we have to seriously question the legitimacy of this source. The available evidence suggests that IlBusinessDaily.com is not a reliable source even though it is pretending to be one.

The Illinois Business Daily is a fake news site run by Locality Labs aka Local Labs, run by Brian Timpone.

Here is proof that this publication is run by Locality Labs which is owned by fake news huckster Brian Timpone: http://ilbusinessdaily.com/terms

Here are multiple articles providing support for the fact that Brian Timpone, publisher of this Illinois Business Daily, owner of Locality Labs, is a right-wing fake news publisher:

• https://patch.com/illinois/joliet/fake-newspapers-misleading-will-dupage-county-residents-state-senator
• https://www.scribd.com/document/321012293/Complaint-List#from_embed
• http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-07-01/business/ct-biz-0702-journatic-20120702_1_triblocal-websites-stories-bylines
• http://www.chicagoreader.com/Bleader/archives/2017/03/29/if-your-community-news-is-slanted-dan-proft-may-be-to-blame
• https://www.cjr.org/united_states_project/illinois_pac_newspapers.php

These sites are the subject of complaints by the Illinois Board of Elections:

• http://illinoisreview.typepad.com/illinoisreview/2016/03/liberty-principles-pac-focus-of-two-campaign-coordination-complaints.html

The Illinois Business Daily has a Domains By Proxy WHOIS. No real news site would have that.

This content should be deleted and this site should probably be added to this page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fake_news_websites Truthseekr67 (talk) 17:24, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

Getting page back on track

I have read through the edit history and this Talk page and now I'm trying to get this page back on track. Unfortunately, the rollback, while obviously needed, has taken this article to a place with a lot of policy issues. For one, it has re-introduced the Khavari lawsuits section. As a first step, I'd like to propose that this section be removed from the page as it's a clear WP:BLPPRIMARY issue. The section is cited entirely from primary sources, with the Bloomberg article providing no independent analysis beyond the allegations in the lawsuit. As per WP:NOTNEWS and WP:BLPRS unless there is analysis available on how these allegations played out, they should not be included. Mepo233 (talk) 22:38, 25 August 2020 (UTC)