🌱 U.S. Visa Scam Exploits Immigrants + Queens’ Lonely Tallest Tower

Good morning, Queens! ☕️

• 🇺🇿 A U.S. Visa scam in Queens exploited Uzbek immigrants in Queens.
• 😪 The tallest building in Queens might also be the loneliest — after four years its still almost half empty.
• 💩 Bayside needs its sewer system cleaned more often, nuff said.

☀️ 😊 Sunny and pleasant. High: 75 Low: 58.

Here are the top stories today in Queens:

1. A Brooklyn man has pleaded guilty to criminal possession of stolen property in a 2016 U.S. visa scam that exploited members of the Uzbek community in Queens. According to the charges, Olimzhon Turdialiev, 39, claimed to four separate Queens residents that he was able to obtain U.S. visas for their relatives who were still living in Uzbekistan. In all four incidents, the victims paid tens of thousands of dollars Turdialiev and received either fradulent U.S. visas, or nothing at all. As part of his plea agreement, Turdialiev provided restitution in the amount of $92,000, accounting for nearly 80% of the stolen funds, according to Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz.“The victims, in this case, included members of the immigrant community desperately trying to reunite with their loved ones in America,” Katz said. “Scammers and fraudsters who take advantage of fraught situations for their own financial gain will face justice here in Queens County, no matter how long it has been since the crime took place.”

Queens Courier

2. Despite the prestige associated with being the tallest building in Queens, 67-story Skyline Tower remains almost half empty four years after its condominiums first went up for sale. Only 509 of its 802 units had been sold as of Aug. 18., but the building’s developer, Chris Jiashu Xu, is hardly concerned, still aiming for a sellout of $1.09 billion. Modern Spaces CEO Eric Benaim, whose brokerage has been selling the project since the start, expects the building to sell out by the first quarter of 2023. In order to do so, however, Modern Spaces would need to triple or qualruple their current pace of 10 to 15 sale per month, which seems unlikely.

The Real Deal

PIX11 News ; Patch

4. New York-Presbyterian/Queens Hospital will have to fork over $2.5 million in a settlement because of a former physician who billed the federal government’s health care program for medically unnecessary services. For over four years, the employee repeatedly replaced well functioning ICD pulse generator batteries earlier than needed, forcing his patients to undergo a risky and unwarranted surgical procedure to put in the new batteries. An ICD is similar to a pacemaker and keeps an individual’s heart beating at a regular rhythm. The Flushing hospital voluntarily disclosed the physician’s misconduct to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services after an internal investigation found he had violated the False Claims Act.

Patch

5. The Bowne House Historical Society in Flushing has been awarded a significant grant to research, identify and map relatively unknown Underground Railroad networks and escape routes through Civil War-era Queens and Long Island. Supported by The National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom, the mapping project aims to document the museum’s ties to various Underground Railroad networks, the broader abolition movement, and other now-vanished Black history sites throughout Queens and Long Island. The Bowne House is among the oldest buildings in NYC, built in1661 by John Bowne, a Quaker who immigrated from England, and whose family continued to serve Flushing’s African American community into the 19th and 20th centuries.

Queens Courier

🗞 Hankering for more headlines? 👀Look no further:

• Road Rage Victim Dies After Being Shot In Queens: NYPD (Queens Patch)
• Little Amal, a 12-foot-tall, 10-year-old Syrian refugee puppet will pick flowers in Queens during a tour of all five boroughs (The New York Times)
• Senior Appreciation Month kicks off with special events (Queens Courier)
• Queens County Farm Museum’s Amazing Maize Maze features a design by Georgia O’Keeffe (Time Out)
• Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, a Queens Democrat, signed onto the mayor’s push for expedited work permits for asylum seeks amid busing crisis (New York Daily News)

🗓 To Do Today in Queens:

• Barn Volunteer at GallopNYC (9 a.m.)
• Socrates Sculpture Park Free Admission Thursday (9 a.m.)
• 49th Autumn Daze Arts, Crafts & Music Festival (10 a.m.)
• Tot Time: Hunters Point Parks Conservancy (10 a.m.)
• JFK Airport Hiring Event (10 a.m.)
• Queens County Farm Museum Free Admission Thursday (10 a.m.)
• Chess At the Rock (5 p.m.)
• Saint Markella’s Greek Festival (6 p.m.)
• New York in Fiction: An Author Reading and Discussion (7 p.m.)

🗣 Queens Chatter:

• Listen up teens!: “📣 #NYC Teens to the Front! 📣
  Applications are still open for the Fall Cohort of the Queens Teens Institute for Art & Social Justice, learn more here and apply! Applications close 9/15! : http://qnsmu.se/queensteens #TeensInNYC #QueensTeensInstitute (Queens Museum via Twitter)
• Bringing green space to public housing: “A beautiful day to join @NYCParks
  Commissioner Donoghue, Deputy Mayor Joshi, @DanRosenthalNYC , @NYCHA officials and tenants in cutting the ribbon on Legacy Park at Pomonok Houses today. The project is part of @NYCMayor ‘s citywide initiative to bring greenspace to public housing.” (Queens Borough President Donovan Richards via Twitter)
• Bye, bye summer: “We’d be lion if we said we’re not sorry to see summer end, but don’t worry, you’ll still be able to watch training and feeding sessions with our popular pinnipeds Benji, Jojo, and McCabe at the Sea Lion Pool!” (Queens Zoo via Facebook)
• Umar Rashid first solo museum show: “Opening next Thursday, 9/22, #UmarRashid‘s first solo museum exhibition in New York City is a collision of epochs, epics, and more than a few references to 1999’s “The Matrix.” Learn more at http://mo.ma/umar. With over 30 new works that mark the final chapters of his ongoing series, “Ancien Regime Change,” the show blends history and fantasy to examine the consolidation of colonial power in the 18th century, and how it might be undone in the future. By foregrounding Black and brown people in his paintings, Umar reasserts the key roles that historically marginalized people have played in the construction and deconstruction of Western histories.” (MoMA PS1 via Twitter)