Complaint Review: Joyous Presence - Nationwide

Justice. Finally, Joyous Presence and his wife are implicated in the scam they ran for years.

The executive director of a non-profit that feeds seniors and his wife embezzled almost $1 million in taxpayer money to pay the mortgage of their four-bedroom Long Island home and their bills as well as buy a luxury car, according to federal prosecutors.

Joyous Presence, the executive director of United Block Association misappropriated funds by transferring them from the non-profit to another bank account and writing checks to a shell corporation he controlled with his wife Roxanna Pearson, according to the city's Department of Investigation.

Additionally, Pearson worked as a consultant for UBA until 2012 but kept receiving over a hundred thousand dollars in funds from the nonprofit.

The city’s investigation also looked at the city agency that kept funding UBA

“Our investigation revealed systematic vulnerabilities in the Department for the Aging’s practices that we are now working with the agency to correct so that city services get to New Yorkers in need not to crooks who prey on them,” said DOI Commissioner Mark Peters.

The investigation found that the city’s Department for the Aging only has two staff members responsible for conducting hundreds of audits. Each auditor has a case load of more than 100 non-profits.  

Insaidoo was able to exploit the fact that the city agency collects a limited number of supporting documents to substantiate invoices to the point of over-reporting total expenses by more than 500 percent, according to the DOI report.

According to their 2014 tax filings, UBA received $1.5 million from the government, which accounted for 89 percent of their total revenue of $1.676 million.

Their expenses that year totaled $1.672 million — 37 percent went to pay salaries and wages while 25 percent paid for food for seniors.

The U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Preet Bharara announced the charges Wednesday.

Insaidoo and Pearson have been charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, embezzlement of government funds and money laundering conspiracy. The federal charges are each punishable by up to 20 years in prison.

The couple could not immediately be reached for comment.

I read the articles about the CHP report from April 2013 (when he killed a woman and severely injured his ex-girlfriend), and they said that Sean was 23 at the time so I don’t know who to believe. This guy is dangerous, and quite the slippery snake! 

http://www.vcstar.com/news/ventura-woman-killed-monday-in-oak-view-crash

http://www.hometownstation.com/santa-clarita-news/canyon-country-woman-critically-injured-in-ojai-crash-monday-34535

https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?id=172523516166174&story_fbid=453076444777545

Sure age doesn’t matter, (I’ve got more years under my belt that I’d like to admit) we’re all still learning, but what does matter is credentials and abilities, which this guy clearly has none of. I actually laughed out loud reading his response to the original report because he tries to rebut the claims but ends up actually reinforcing them by stroking his ego and using unnecessarily big words. Calling himself a ‘visionary innovator’, HA! What is he innovating? Snake oil!? He tries to rebut the fact that he pedestals himself… while putting himself on a pedestal! The irony! This guy just doesn't get it! If Steve Wozniak really said those things about him, I’d like to hear them from Steve himself, not some kid on the internet.

Sounds like he has some serious narcism issues, I don’t know why anyone would agree to work with him. Looks like he’s having a baby with his new girlfriend too, that was quick! Good luck kid!

To whom it may concern,

It is with a heavy heart that I find this message and feel compelled to share a more truthful story of myself and my companies in question. Thank you for allowing me to offer an alternative perspective while inviting you to do your own research, including contacting us directly, for information regarding our current organizational activites.

The individual who prepared this falsified report, James Hurwitz, was briefly an employee during a launch of one of the projects under Transdimensional Illumination. Although he chose to file this report anonymously, James is the only one who would say such falsified and damaging statements, threatened to do so, and used this exact languaging when ranting about us in other places on the web; he also lives in California where this report was filed.

While my advisors considered legal action to force this fallacious report to be retracted, I feel an explanation here, along with an open invitation to contact me anytime (search for Joyous Presence on FB), is more than sufficient and preferable to the hassle of dealing with our current legal system. I have asked James to take down his offensive and uncouth public rant here on RipOffReport and he has refused. I pray his conscience and sense of integrity leads him to do the right thing as his anger diminishes; see the last paragraph of this rebuttal to learn the history that led James decided to file this report.

First and foremost, only two projects within our not-for-profit's collective of transformative projects were of my creation. These are still developmental; they have extensive foundational materials including business plans, marketing documents, along with having hand-selected teams ready to deploy these visions once funding is received. We have five other projects in our collective, three of which are currently operational (Natural Leaders Foundation, Circle of Children and New Paradigm Foundation), all three were created by other inspired individuals within our "Transdimensional Family."

"Under the guise of a non-profit and the ruse of a sustainable community, he is seeking investors to fund his own lifestyle and profit off of the rising popularity in transformational festival culture." These words are quite hurtful and obviously untrue considering I have been living below the minimum wage level to support these visions for three years. I have been living off of consulting and web development work along with modest donations from a core group of families and individual who believe fully in the long-term vision we are working toward.

Not that my age matters in terms of core competency, yet I was over a year older than James claimed in 2013. Also, I have extensive training in developmental education thanks to working with alternative and conventional educators around the country, studying existing exemplary educational models and curriculum globally, along with growing up training in developmental psychology, wholehearted leadership and emotional intelligence training with my father (http://staubleadership.com).

I have never claimed myself as the "Steve Jobs of Education," to paraphrase I simply said, to make an analogy I felt James would resonante with being an Apple employee, "... like Jobs, I am working on visions that are future-oriented and will not be fully understood by many for another few years. I am visionary innovator, not a systems operator, which is why building these visions has been difficult. Jobs had a host of business and tech experts to support his visionary prowess in achieving success; I ask you to give me time to build these visions, rather than judging what you percieve as ineptitude based on the shifting time-tables of implementing various components of our audacious vision; afterall Jobs made claims which many believed outrageous and crazy in their inception and spent years building his dreams before making significant traction."

I also said something along the lines of, "I am devoted to enriching the socioeconomic paradigms of the planet and have spent years of my life building replicable templates to shift lifestyle and learning paradigms to expand human potential. I know that a great deal of this work is aligned with where trends are headed (LOHAS and Cultural Creatives) in the upcoming decades... today some of the full extent of this work may believed to be impossible/improbable just as the discovery that the world was round and we are not the center of the cosmos was publicly rejected for some time before finally being adopted." From these statements James inferred I was calling myself the Jobs of Education and has stated numerous times publicly that I like to pedestal myself over others... which is hilarious to anyone who knows me, yet it is disconcerting for me to think such words are being shared with potential friends, partners, clients and others who have yet to meet me and create their experiential perspective of my character disposition and life work.

I was also given this quote by Steve Wozniak, the co-founder of Apple, “Joyous is here to completely transform the world in his own rights. This young man is a very admirable person… he will be very successful in his goals is my prediction. I enjoyed time with Joyous very much and will help his project as I can. I believe the educational system he is working on is what is needed for the world and he is on the right track to developing a new educational paradigm.” - Steve Wozniak

"Supporting only "proficiency in basic subjects" but learning "advanced breath techniques, and “reality hacks,” is not going to teach the engineers and scientists of tomorrow. He wants to create an unsustainable cult that lives "off the land" in some half-baked future commune eco-village community which is all to his benefit so he can become king."

Yes, we do support proficiency (a high degree of competence or skill; expertise) in core subjects of learning AND believe that additional subjects are required for balanced lifestyle mastery and true success (i.e. emotional intelligence, advanced self-care practices, sustainable lifestyle training, core life purpose development, whole-hearted leadership programs, body/breath awareness...).

In reality, the communities we are building are scalable luxury eco-communities which provide integrated technological solutions to offer a lifesyle that is more affordable, wellness oriented, sustainable and practical than current mainstream development models offer. Learn more about this vision at http://timelessearth.com and also http://awecommunities.com. Our communities are designed to be run by advisory and managment councils (based on the principles found in holonomics/holocracy models of dynamic leadership) of aligned individuals offering expertise in the various components necessary to steward a diverse community population of several hundred to several thousand people; social architecure and integrated agrarian infrastructure are key components to the success of these self-sustaining developments showcasing a more expanded and elevated lifestyle than the one offered in the current societal paradigm. In no way are our community leaders designed to be "kings and queens," in fact we choose to showcase a truly unique model of social equality within these developments while sharing an alternative leadership perspective to the immature and oudated Guru/Alpha Male model.

James Hurwitz was hired by Lucinda Diaz, a former partner of mine, to fulfill secretarial and administrative work to launch a project called LovesPresence; an online sustainability/love oriented commerce and information portal with proceeds going to free education through various Transdimensional Illumination projects. James fulfilled only half of what was tasked to him, and then demanded an extra $8 an hour ($12 to $20) over what had been been originally agreed upon, threatening to hold the work we were paying him for hostage until we met his newly formed standards. Due to a company card issue, while I was away working on a educational project in Costa Rica with no Internet for two weeks, James' pay was slightly delayed which is one reason we acquiesed to his demands for a higher pay rate despire the lack of integrity in fulfulling the tasks Lucinda had set before him. Trying to mitigate an arguement between them, I then became the focus of James' frustration and rage (which seems to have stemmed from something totally unrelated and brought fully to bear in this situation). James has become quite vindictive, even zealous, in trying to discredit me, my partners and our companies. It is sad he is devoting so much of his life energy to such a hollow cause. As mentioned earlier, since James' rants are relatively harmless (other than reports such as this), I have decided not to take legal action at this time; instead, I am here to provide grounded perspective, while swearing to the truth of my actions/words publicly, and pray that the mind and spirit of this young man are assuaged so that truth and clarity may shine through.

Thank you again for your priceless time as I offer to you a more truthful analysis of my character and the companies I am currently building. Anyone of the people listed on our team/advisory council would be happy to vouch for the authenticity of the words I have shared. I also invite you to connect with me professionally through our websites, and/or personally on social media, to make your own informed decisions before pay attention to the ranting of a uncouth youth operating out of blind anger and misguided perceptions.

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