A couple who co-founded Life Alert Emergency Response Inc. are suing a woman they say accused them of crimes similar to those of Bernie Madoff and said one of them ordered the retrieval of a check from a dead subscriber’s home.
Isaac and Miriam Shepher started the company that popularized the phrase, “I’ve fallen, and I can’t get up” with its advertisements for medical alert systems.
Their Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit, filed Friday, names as the lone defendant Irith Hayblum, whose husband, Leon, filed suit against Life Alert last May in New York.
Leon Hayblum’s suit alleges the company violated New York state human rights and labor laws by firing him from his sales manager position because of his age and disability. The suit also states he had complained that a manager was routinely sexually harassing employees.
The Shepher lawsuit against Irith Hayblum seeks at least $1 million in damages. She could not be immediately reached for comment.
According to the couple’s lawsuit, Miriam Shepher chairs the board of directors of the Israeli-American Council, which seeks to build an engaged and united Israeli-American community, and served in the Israeli Defense Forces during the Six-Day War.
Last March 24, Irith Hayblum sent an email to the council’s board of directors stating that a plan to name a new community center after the Shephers was “not a well-thought-out plan and should be reversed without delay,” the suit states.
The email also stated that the couple was “committing shameful crimes against hundreds of thousands of the most defenseless and vulnerable members of the population; the disabled, old and sick people who live alone,” according to the lawsuit.
The correspondence also stated that the alleged crimes by the Shephers were “as bad as Bernie Madoff’s (offenses) were” — Madoff headed the largest Ponzi scheme in history — and that Isaac Shepher was known as “The Boxer” in Israel” for “beating up people for financial gains for his shady business,” the suit says.
The email also stated that Isaac Shepher ordered a salesperson to removed a signed check from a dead subscriber’s residence, according to the lawsuit.
Irith Hayblum knew her statements were false when she made them, the suit alleges. The Shephers have suffered harm to their reputation, as well as “shame, mortification and hurt feelings,” their suit states.
–City News Service