In another yet another case of a jewish fraudster we have Rabbi Eliyahu Ben Haim who was caught by the FBI in 2009 engaging in a massive anti-corruption and money-laundering sting in and around New York.
According to NJ.com at the time:
‘A Monmouth County rabbi arrested in last year’s massive FBI sting pleaded guilty today to laundering up to $1.5 million of what he believed were criminal proceeds.
Eliyahu Ben Haim told a federal judge in Trenton he used his religious charity to launder checks for a government informant who claimed the money came from insurance scams, bank frauds and the sale of knock-off hand bags.
The 59-year-old rabbi was arrested in last year’s epic money-laundering and bribery sting that ensnared 46 people. They included five rabbis, three mayors, two assemblymen and one man accused of conspiring to sell a human kidney.
Ben Haim is the first rabbi to plead guilty in connection to the case. He faces roughly four and a half and seven years in prison under the terms of his deal with prosecutors.
Ben Haim grew up in Brooklyn and is the former head of Congregation Ohel Yaacob in the borough of Deal. His father, Baruch Ben Haim, was among the most prominent rabbis in New York City’s Syrian Jewish community.
Bearded and bespectacled, Ben Haim stood before U.S. District Judge Joel Pisano wearing a dark suit and yarmulke. He admitted meeting multiple times with Solomon Dwek, who began secretly recording conversations with the FBI after being charged in 2006 with a $50 million bank fraud.
Dwek, whose father is a rabbi, was laundering money through Ben Haim as early as June 2007, beginning with a $50,000 check he claimed came from an insurance scam in Florida. The rabbi said he charged 10 percent for each transaction and worked with a man in Israel who supplied him with money to cash checks.
“He washes money for people,” Ben Haim said, according to the complaint.
The rabbi deposited Dwek’s checks into the accounts of his charity organizations. Then, authorities say, the rabbi wired the money to his contact in Israel. He took 1.5 percent and wired the rest to accomplices in New York who delivered it to Ben Haim and Dwek, authorities said.
“You see the merry-go-round? This guy’s been doing it for 20, 30 years,” Ben Haim said, according to the complaint.
The judge scheduled Ben Haim’s sentencing for Sept. 30. Maureen Nakly, an assistant U.S. attorney, agreed to allow Ben Haim to remain free on bail.’ (1)
Predictably enough when it came to sentencing nearly two years later (why it took so long is unexplained, but Ben Haim remained free on bail during this inexplicable prolonged delay) the sentence was predictably light.
To quote JTA in 2012:
‘Rabbi Eliyahu Ben Haim, a prominent New Jersey spiritual leader, was sentenced to five years in prison for money laundering.
Ben Haim, 60, was sentenced Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Trenton, N.J., for laundering at least $1.5 million through a number of religious charities from October 2006 to July 2009. He pleaded guilty in June 2010.
The rabbi was among 45 people, including other religious leaders and politicians, arrested in a government sting operation in the summer of 2009 with the cooperation of Solomon Dwek, a developer who was involved in a $50 million bank fraud.
At his sentencing, Ben Haim pleaded for leniency.’ (2)
Leniency would have frankly been a bullet, but regardless of my personal opinion.
The jewish community appears to have intervened on Ben Haim’s behalf and he was out in no time and now – as a convicted felon – apparently teaches ‘Advanced Talmud’ at Yeshiva University (3) unless there are two ‘Rabbi Eliyahu Ben Haims’ who are prominent Mizrahi jews from Syria in the New York area!
References
(1) https://www.nj.com/news/2010/06/rabbi_pleads_guilty_in_nj_corr.html
(2) https://www.jta.org/2012/01/05/united-states/n-j-rabbi-sentenced-to-5-years-in-prison-in-scam
(3) https://www.yu.edu/faculty/pages/ben-haim-eliyahu
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