(Multi-state thief, liar, and scam artist Holoman-Franklin, in photo.)
Hello Hans,
First off, I am sorry for not replying sooner, I am currently on vacation in Mexico (my home country) and just saw your email. I am sorry to hear that Clifford has passed, especially because he had to go through such an ordeal in his last years because of Raphael. I have to acknowledge your efforts to maintain the blog about Raphael and keep a record of his actions. I googled Raphael before subletting a room from him and since there was no information available I assumed that it would be relatively safe to rent from him. Had there been a blog like yours at the time I would have saved myself a lot of trouble.
I will recount my experience with Raphael next. I am adding some information that I did not include in my letter to Clifford because the letter was intented to be used as part of a legal procedure so I only listed objetive facts. Here I am including some personal impressions about my relation with Raphael and how it affected me in hopes that the judge realizes the repercussions of Raphael's actions.
I met Raphael in 2007 in New York City where I was doing a summer intership and was looking for a place to stay. I contacted him through an add that he had posted on Craigslist. He presented himself as a PhD student in economics from Columbia University. He seemed to be a polite person and have some community involvement (he frequented a Mormon church in Uptown West Manhattan) plus, as I said before, I found no negative information about him on Google, so I decided to sublet from him.
I rented a room in his appartment in Washington Heights (he claimed that it belonged to his mother) from June 11 thru August 31 and paid him $3,375 ($675 for the month of June + $1,800 for the months of July and August + $900 as a security deposit). Raphael seemed very interested in renting all available rooms in the appartament so I ended up sleeping in the living room and sharing the place with three other roommates who were charged the same monthly rent. Raphael left the appartment in the last week of June. He said that he was going to visit his mother in England and that he should be back in the first week of September.
On August 4, Api Castano came to the appartment. He said that he was the actual lessee of the appartment and that Raphael had not paid the rent for the months of June and July. Mr Castano explained that he had emailed Raphael about this situation but he had received no answer from him. When talking with Mr Castano, we realized that Raphael was pocketing $3,600 a month (considering the rents of all rommates) for an appartment whose actual monthly rent was 750!
Although Mr Castano was kind enough to let us stay in the appartment while the rent problem was solved, the following weeks were really hard. I was worried all the time thinking that I might find my belongings on the street when I got back from work. I was also worried about having to find a new place and, above all, finding funds to pay the expenses that could arise from a potential eviction. As a student, I had limited funds and my internship was unpaid so thinking about getting more money was really stressful. Needless to say, this had an effect on my work performance. To make things worse, a three-day notice from the building's management arrived on August 21. I emailed Raphael explaining him this and he replied that he would send his lawyer to pick up the notice and solve the problem. Nobody came in the following weeks. He also said that he would move to Cambridge, MA in September because he had found a teaching position at Harvard Business School and that he would contact me then.
In the last week of August new roommates arrived (one of them was Myles Glynn). Raphael had not told us about Mr Glynn before so we supposed that he might have rented the appartment to more people. One of the new roommates emailed Raphael telling him that she was not happy with this situation and, as an answer, he asked her to leave. After that, and to our surprise after all what was going on, Raphael kept posting adds on Craigslist looking to sublet the place to other people!
I left the appartment on September 4, the new roommates allowed me to stay in the appartment until that date hoping that Raphael would come back, but he never did. After moving back to Medford, MA, I emailed Raphael on several occasions in order to get my $900-security deposit back, but did not get any answer from him. I joined other former roommates who were trying to find a legal solution but, as you may well know, this is a civil matter that would require investing (more) money and time on a trial where there is no guarantee of remuneration.
Hans, I cannot tell you enough how outrageous and sad it is for me to see people like Raphael who take advantage of flaws in the U.S. legal system, and use religious and community institutions, to remorselessly harm other people. To the best of my knowledge he is not taking money from those who are better off but from people like myself and many others who struggle to make a living. This is why efforts like your blog and warning other people about Raphael are important so that less people are harmed by him. I really hope that tomorrow's hearing makes Raphael understand how his actions affect other people not only financially but also emotionally.
Please do not hesitate to contact me if you need any further information. Good luck with tomorrow's hearing.
Regards,
Guillermo Porras Cortes
gporras_cortes@hotmail.com
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