BARBARA NEVINS TAYLOR

As you move through the pages of this website
you'll find that I've got a number of serious
passions.

I'm a bicycle rider, sailor, hiker, yoga enthusiast,
serious home-cook, novel reader, lover of
Broadway theater, and good jazz. In addition I'm working on a research project about why people do good deeds.

If you've got something that you'd like to talk with me about, please use my blog page or email me.



RECENT AWARDS

2009 was a good year.

2 Emmy Awards

The New York Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences awarded us the Investigative Reporting Emmy for our story about Medicaid Fraud. That report is now nominated for a national Emmy, and we find out in September if we have won.

This year we also won an Emmy for Crime Reporting for our investigation of a car accident that took the life of a Brooklyn child who was crossing the street with his dad. We found that a driver had a history of serious violations and yet retained his license.


The New York Press Club also honored our Medicaid Fraud report with its award for Consumer Reporting. The Newswomen's Club of New York gave us its Feature Award for a story about a woman who lost nearly everything when she tumbled down cracked subway steps, broke major bones in her body, and woke up in Bellevue Medical Center unable to move. Our report helped her save her possessions and begin to get her life back.

The New Jersey Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists honored us with awards for our investigation into a probation officer who demanded, a man on probation she supervises perform work in her home for almost nothing.

We were also honored for our story about communities fighting against giant power lines that are set to run through their backyards.

REPORTS THAT GET ACTION

A number of people whom we’ve exposed have been sent to prison as a result of our reports,or are under investigation.


CREDIT REPAIR LAWSUIT

In October of 2008 the New Jersey attorney general filed a lawsuit against a credit repair company we investigated in 2007. The attorney general charged the company with deceptive practices something that we pointed out in our report.

LANDLORD GETS JAIL TIME

In April 2008 landlord Hamid Khan was jailed for 8 days after our 2007 report exposed the hellish conditions in one of his Bronx buildings.


HOME IMPROVEMENT NIGHTMARE

In December of 2007 Wayne Drinkwine was sentenced to pay more than $170,000 in restitution to homeowners he cheated. Our 2006 report exposed how he embezzled money from homeowners and his bosses.


GREEN CARD SCAM—

In 2007 the United States Attorney in the Southern District of New York charged Maria Elena Maximo with scamming immigrants out of nearly $1 Million by promising to help them get Green Cards. The complaint cited our 2006 report, and our undercover investigation.

Maria Elena Maximo ran a community organization called Jamalali Uagucha. She was supposed to be an advocate for immigrants and neighborhood residents. Instead we found that she was running a massive green card scam where she charged immigrants who were not qualified $1500 a piece to process applications for Green Cards and work permits.

Because there is such a backlog of applications in New York, the immigration service is required to give anyone who applies for a Green Card a work permit. When the immigration service gets around to processing the Green Card application and it’s denied, the work permit is pulled and the person is deported.

Maximo was able to fool people who were not eligible into paying her the money because others got the work permits, and the word in the community was that it appeared legitimate. We did an undercover report where an immigrant who wasn’t qualified went into the office to talk to Maximo. She told her she could qualify, and when we confronted Maximo she sputtered, and stuttered and told me I was violating her rights by asking her questions.

Maximo is accused of defrauding the U.S. government and the immigrants whose money she took, and whose status in this country she jeopardized.

LANDLORD GETS JAIL TIME–
In 2007 a bad landlord sent to jail for 12 days because of the inhumane conditions in his buildings. In two reports we exposed Olefumi Falade, a Brooklyn landlord, whose tenants lived with collapsed ceilings, no heat, no hot water, toilets that didn’t work, giant holes in the floors, leaky roofs and other persistent problems that would make anyone cry. We were there when Falade turned himself in at Brooklyn Housing court. We followed him as he was handcuffed and taken to the city jail.


TAX PREPARER SCAM

The U.S. Attorney in Newark and the IRS indicted and arrested an East Orange New Jersey tax preparer we exposed 4 years ago. The indictment was based on cases from 2002 when we did our investigation and found that the a staffer in the tax preparer’s office was filling out income tax returns encouraging people to falsely claim dependents so they could get bigger refunds, and the company a larger fee.

BAD CONTRACTOR GETS JAIL TIME

A Suffolk County, Long Island judge sentenced a serially bad contractor to 6 months in jail. We investigated Chris Colona last summer and found that he took large amounts of money from homeowners, some paid him in excess of $30,000, started work and never finished it leaving the homeowners with nightmare situations. In one case he ripped out a family’s bathroom, left the new bathtub in the master bedroom, and never returned. In other cases, he tore up people’s yards promising to lay stone, or tile and left the homeowners with shoddy, unfinished work. We brought the Suffolk County Commissioner of Consumer Affairs to see what havoc Colona wrought, and as a result charges were brought against him.

DR. JOSE ARELY LOPEZ GOES TO PRISON—

Jose Arley Lopez who lost his medical licenses in two states and then continued to practice medicine began serving 2-6 years in a New York State Prison.

Dr. Jose Lopez pleaded guilty to practicing medicine without a license, and this was a direct result of our reporting.

Lopez was arrested after we revealed that he continued to perform cosmetic surgery although his medical licenses had been revoked. His medical licenses in New York and New Jersey were taken away after Wendy Nunez, a young mother died on his operating table during anesthesia for a tummy tuck in Lopez's New Jersey office.

Caught on camera, our undercover camera caught Lopez examining and consulting with a patient in his Fifth Avenue office and explaining how he was going to make her "more beautiful." We also inadvertently walked in on Lopez with our camera rolling as he was performing surgery. Shortly after that confrontation, he left the surgery and ran out the side door of the office building where we confronted him in the street. He denied that he was performing surgery. The New York Attorney General extradited Lopez from Florida where he fled after our report. But the A.G.'s office wasn't as quick to act after we exposed Dean Faiello pretending to be a doctor. Faiello billed himself as a laser specialist and our undercover report caught him claiming he was a doctor. While Faiello was arrested after our report, he was free on bail awaiting sentencing when he allegedly killed a woman during a laser procedure. Her body was found stuffed in a suitcase buried in cement in the garage of Faiello's family home in Newark, New Jersey. He's facing murder charges.

Featured Work

My work on the Lopez story was featured on the Maury Povich show in January. My work exposing Faiello was featured in Vanity Fair and on 48 Hours. An upcoming segment of Montel Williams will feature my reporting on stolen identity.

Warning About Mercury in Skin Care Products

I feel great when public officials take action because of something that I’ve uncovered in an investigation. It is even better when their action helps other people, and that’s what happened recently in New York.

If you shop in a beauty supply store in an ethnic neighborhood, you’re likely to find soaps, and skin-lightening creams laced with mercury. These products are extremely dangerous because mercury can damage the central nervous system causing paralysis, damage the kidneys, cause severe depression, and harm an unborn child. We reported the terrible dangerous of mercury soaps and lotions in the chapter called Dangerous Products in Beautiful Skin of Color. As an investigative reporter, I’ve been reporting about this problem for four years on UPN9 News.

After we brought the issue to the attention of the New York City Health Department, officials promised to launch their own investigation. As result, the Health Department issued a warning to the public about the extreme dangers of skincare products containing mercury. Many news outlets picked up the story and we hope that many, many people get the message.

You can find the details, and the reasons why you shouldn’t use these products in Beautiful Skin of Color the book I wrote with the two smart, and talented dermatologists, Dr. Jeanine Downie, and Dr. Fran Cook-Bolden

REVIEW FROM GENERATIONRICE

After I had surgery a few years ago, a long scar formed across my abdomen. Not just any scar, but a keloid, a thick ridge of fibrous tissue that resembles a mutated worm. When my surgeon saw it he told me what it was and said, "Keloids are more prevalent among African Americans. This one may not go away." He was right about its permanency, but wrong about who gets this type of scar - Asian Americans and biracial folks like me can get them too because of our sensitive skin.

That's also the premise of Beautiful Skin of Color, a useful reference written by a team of two dermatologists, Jeanine Downie, M.D., and Fran Cook-Bolden, M.D., and a journalist, Barbara Nevins Taylor. These writers draw upon their own experiences as people of color as well as their clinical practice to provide readers with the latest info on skin care for minorities. They cover a range of common skin disorders and treatments and what works best for non-whites. Topics include acne, Botox, cancer, chemical peels, hair removal and tattoos.

I'm on the Rue Jacob, my favorite street in Paris, getting ready to investigate.