Who is Isaiah Jeremy Marcano Avilés?

NEW ROCHELLE, NY (March 3, 2024) — Until a few days ago, I had never heard of Isaiah Jeremy Marcano Avilés. After he made false claims to Substack resulting in their removing and banning my recent article, Who Actually Complained about New Rochelle’s Israeli Flag?, he has my complete, undivided attention.

I cross-posted the article on Talk of the Sound, so you can still read it here.

So just who is Isaiah Jeremy Marcano Avilés and how did he earn the honor and distinction of a “Who is … ?” article by Robert Cox.

“Isa”, as he is known among friends, first came to my attention when his emails to New Rochelle officials were sent to me pursuant to a lawful FOIL request seeking to know just who Mayor Yadira Ramos-Herbert was referring to when she claimed that she and City Manager Kathleen Gill had been receiving complaints about the Israeli flag then flying in front of City Hall.

The Israeli flag controversy came to public attention after I obtained public records under a Freedom of Information request: emails between various New Rochelle officials, the Mayor, six City Council Members, the City Manager and the City’s Corporation Counsel (lawyer).

In the Mayor’s very first email raising the Israeli flag issue among City officials, in her very first sentence, she cited “calls” received by her and the City Manager and other officials.

The calls could have been one caller calling many times or many callers calling once, or something in between. As it turns out, it was one caller making many calls: Isaiah Jeremy Marcano Avilés.

I know this because I made a follow-up FOIL request on the Mayor’s claim in order to obtain all emails with complaints made to City officials before publishing my first article about the Israeli flag on February 8, 2024. I also spoke with the City Manager and Council Member Martha Lopez, who confirmed Isaiah Jeremy Marcano Avilés was the caller referred to by Mayor Yadira Ramos-Herbert.

Here is my FOIL request and the reply.

The only records covered by that request were emails sent by Isaiah Jeremy Marcano Avilés to the Mayor of New Rochelle Yadira Ramos-Herbert and Council Member Martha Lopez.

Here are those emails.

I have requested but have not been provided the actual complaint made by Isaiah Jeremy Marcano Avilés to Substack, so I have been forced to infer the actual complaint, but it is probably something like this:

• Isaiah Jeremy Marcano Avilés is a previously anonymous person
• 1-914-602-6456 is a private phone number assigned to Isaiah Jeremy Marcano Avilés
  

I have elsewhere addressed the false claim that my publishing public records constitute my having “exposed information personally identifying an individual without their consent” and “releasing personally identifiable information of previously anonymous individuals is a violation of Substack’s Content Guidelines and Terms of Use.”

The Substack Privacy Policy states, “the publication of publicly accessible information is not a violation of this policy.” By definition, public records are publicly accessible information. The person who deliberately added his phone number into the public record — three different times — is Isaiah Jeremy Marcano Avilés.

In this article, I want to address the absurd claim that Isaiah Jeremy Marcano Avilés is a previously anonymous individual, whatever that is supposed to mean. I checked and there is no legal term called previously anonymous individual, so this is a made-up term.

Webster’s Dictionary offers three definitions of anonymous: (1) of unknown authorship or origin (i.e., an anonymous tip); (2) not named or identified (i.e., an anonymous author, or they wish to remain anonymous); (3) lacking individuality, distinction, or recognizability (i.e., the anonymous faces in the crowd, the gray anonymous streets).

The emails — all public records — were clearly marked as coming from Isaiah Jeremy Marcano Avilés. He sent them. The signature he added reads “Isaiah J. Marcano Avilés Pronouns: He/Him/His t: 914-602-6456 Attorney-at-law Admitted to Practice in New York State and Texas”.

Here is the signature he put in three emails to the Mayor.

The City of New Rochelle requires that a person provide their name when making a complaint. The City will not act on an anonymous complaint. New Rochelle also requires that a person addressing city council at a public hearing or during Citizens to be Heard provide their name and address in writing and say their name and address aloud in public before they are permitted to address the city council.

Upon reason and belief, Isaiah Jeremy Marcano Avilés was never a previously anonymous individual as it pertains to his emails lobbying New Rochelle officials on the Israeli flag — by whatever fabricated definition he or Substack care to claim. He clearly identified himself in all the public records, and to staff and elected officials in his numerous phone calls.

Isaiah Jeremy Marcano Avilés (and Substack) might be confusing previously anonymous individual with private figure as defined in defamation law, where the standards are different for public and private figures.

To be considered a private figure, Isaiah Jeremy Marcano Avilés would need be considered an ordinary person who did not seek the public limelight or insert themselves into debate and discussion of highly public and contentious issues.

He is not even close to being a private figure.

Even had Isaiah Jeremy Marcano Avilés been a ghostly hermit, invisible to the world, living off the grid, his emails, and phone calls to government officials, even if made from a small town near a one-room shack in Montana, would be him inserting himself into a debate and discussion of a highly public and contentious issue. By lobbying the Mayor, City Manager and a Council Member to take down the Israeli flag, he immediately forfeited any claim to be a private figure he might have once had.

But even long before Isaiah Jeremy Marcano Avilés inserted himself into, and if we believe the Mayor, actually instigated the controversy over the Israeli flag, he made himself a public figure. He has no claim to privacy beyond privacy afforded him by statute, such as medical records. It certainly does not apply to a phone number he deliberately and repeatedly placed in public records.

The Internet is today littered with the flotsam and jetsam of the publicly accessible digital life of Isaiah Jeremy Marcano Avilés — despite not including his last name or switching his LinkedIN profile to private in the past few days.

From his many publicly accessible records, the world knows Isaiah Jeremy Marcano Avilés was born on January 19, 1992 (happy belated 32nd birthday, Isa!) and hailed from the Bronx before heading of to Nashville for college.

Isaiah Jeremy Marcano Avilés describes himself as a third-generation Puerto Rican mainlander and fluent in English, Spanish, and Brazilian Portuguese. His interest in the law arose while working as an international arbitration paralegal at Curtis, Mallet-Prevost, Colt & Mosle LLP in New York.

Isaiah Jeremy Marcano Avilés is registered to vote in New Rochelle as a “Non”, meaning he has no party affiliation. His address is listed as 111 Center Avenue, Apartment 263 in New Rochelle, NY 10801.

Isaiah Jeremy Marcano Avilés attended then graduated from Vanderbilt University in 2014 with a B.A. in Luso-Brazilian and International Studies.

Isaiah Jeremy Marcano Avilés was a Research Associate at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs. In June 2012 his Letter to the Editor on a book about consumer credit in Brazil was published by the Council on Hemispheric Affairs journal.

Isaiah Jeremy Marcano Avilés was and may still be a member of the Omega Psi Phi Fraternity (2013).

As a student in the Center for Latin American Studies at Vanderbilt University, Isaiah Jeremy Marcano Avilés traveled to Brazil in Summer 2013 on a Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship. In Fall 2013 he was in the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE) exchange program, One Nation Out of Many: Multiculturalism in Brazil and the United States, with the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, University of Florida, and Universidade Federal de Pernambuco. He was in Porto Alegre for two weeks at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS). He took two international relations courses and one advanced Portuguese language course. He worked on a paid independent project with the UFRGS College of Letters and its team of Portuguese-English translators.

Isaiah Jeremy Marcano Avilés was a Latin America Public Opinion Project (“LAPOP”) Undergraduate Research Fellow Vanderbilt University.

Isaiah Jeremy Marcano Avilés wrote a paper Evangelicalism and Gay Rights in Latin America, published in Latin America Public Opinion Project Insights Series 2013.

Isaiah Jeremy Marcano Avilés included his Gmail address in his LAPOP article: Isaiah.j.marcano@gmail.com.

Isaiah Jeremy Marcano Avilés was cited the paper Coming Out in the 2010 Census: Same-Sex Couples in Brazil and Uruguay published by International Union for the Scientific Study of Population

Isaiah Jeremy Marcano Avilés was awarded a Lloyd M. Johnson, Jr. Scholarship which offers $10,000 towards a first year of law school. Johnson established the Minority Corporate Counsel Association, an organization dedicated to advancing DEI in corporate America by pushing the legal industry towards change through scholarships for beginning lawyers.

Isaiah Jeremy Marcano Avilés attended then graduated from Cornell Law School in 2017.

Isaiah Jeremy Marcano Avilés was a member of the Executive Board of the Cornell Black Law Students Association.

Isaiah Jeremy Marcano Avilés was and may still be a member of the Puerto Rican Bar Association (2016).

Isaiah Jeremy Marcano Avilés signed a petition in November 2016 addressed to Cornell leadership demanding they declare Cornell University a sanctuary campus, make an unequivocal statement of support for undocumented persons and their families, “in response to the hate speech driving this year’s presidential election” (i.e., Trump), and show their concern for the safety and well-being of the entire Cornell community where the school maintains an environment in which all students can learn without fear.

Isaiah Jeremy Marcano Avilés wrote an article for the Cornell International Law Journal. Anyone who cares to read it or run it through a plagiarism checker can find it here: E-hailing and Employment Rights: The Case for an Employment Relationship Between Uber and its Drivers in South Africa

Isaiah Jeremy Marcano Avilés received the Excellence for the Future Award for excellent achievement in the study of Law and Social Change: Comparative Law in Africa from The Center for Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction at Cornell Law School.

Isaiah Jeremy Marcano Avilés passed the New York State Bar Exam in July 2019.

Isaiah Jeremy Marcano Avilés was licensed to practice law in Texas in 2023 (Bar Card Number: 24133839).

Isaiah Jeremy Marcano Avilés was admitted to the New York State Bar in 2020 (registration number is 5776943) and is currently licensed to practice law in New York State.

Isaiah Jeremy Marcano Avilés has done pro bono work in domestic violence and immigration law.

Isaiah Jeremy Marcano Avilés was and may still be a member of the Dominican Bar Association.

Isaiah Jeremy Marcano Avilés was and may still be a member of the Hispanic National Bar Association

Isaiah Jeremy Marcano Avilés has previously worked at Sidley Austin LLP.

Isaiah Jeremy Marcano Avilés has previously worked at Goodwin Procter LLP.

Isaiah Jeremy Marcano Avilés is currently employed by Ipsos. He works in the New York office of the Corporate Counsel’s Office.

Ipsos describes itself as a Global Market Research and Public Opinion Specialist. It is a publicly traded company with more than $2 billion in revenue.

Ipsos is the world’s third-largest research agency with offices in 89 countries, employing 19,500 people.

Ipsos has a Code of Ethics which includes Section 4.9.

Readers can decide whether the emails Isaiah Jeremy Marcano Avilés sent to New Rochelle officials exhibited a neutral, non-partisan position where he used words such as:

• the ongoing atrocities in Gaza
• Israel’s genocidal campaign
• the mayor’s office supports this genocide
• the ongoing atrocities and genocide in Gaza.
• the atrocities that more than 2 million Palestinians continuously endure, more than 25,000 of whom have been killed by the Israeli military (70% of which women and children, and the overwhelming majority of which were innocent civilians, regardless of gender or age)
  

Readers can also decide whether Isaiah Jeremy Marcano Avilés is less concerned that I published emails he sent containing his phone number and more concerned that his employer might not be pleased to see him engaging in a highly public and contentious issue, using inflammatory language like atrocities and genocide to describe Israel.

Readers can also decide whether Ipsos clients may be even less pleased that a company they pay large sums to help make important strategic decisions is relying on legal advice from someone who exhibits such a lack of discretion as is on display in his email.

Some, fairly or unfairly, may even view Isaiah Jeremy Marcano Avilés rabid lobbying and demands and word choice about Israel as an indication of anti-semitism.

Isaiah Jeremy Marcano Avilés’s office at Ipsos is located on the 11th Floor at 200 Park Avenue, New York 10166-0005. His office phone is (646) 855-5898. Isaiah Jeremy Marcano Avilés email address is ijm25@cornell.edu.

I took about three hours to poke around Google and locate readily available, publicly accessible information about Isaiah Jeremy Marcano Avilés. I did not even try hard. For $200 I can run a complete background check with credit history, liens, criminal history, past addresses, known family members and associates, any cars he has owned, any property he has owned — and all of his current and past phone numbers.

Why bother? My purpose her was simply to demonstrate beyond a shadow of a doubt that any claim made to Substack by Isaiah Jeremy Marcano Avilés that he is a previously anonymous individual or private figure is demonstrably false.

He lied about me and my reporting by making false claims to Substack, resulting in the take-down of my article which includes his emails.

And that is how Isaiah Jeremy Marcano Avilés earned the honor and distinction of a “Who is … ?” article by Robert Cox.