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Rabbi Sentenced In Fraud Case From 1980's

By Howard M. Friedman

In a Manhattan federal court yesterday, Rabbi Avrum Friesel was sentenced to 27 months in jail  and ordered to pay $11 million in restitution for a fraud committed by leaders of the Hasidic village of New Square, New York in the 1980's. Yesterday's New York Post reports that Friesel, after spending eleven years on the run in Israel and Great Britain, plead guilty after being extradited from Britain last year. The offenses included obtaining $10 million in fraudulent Pell grants for ineligible students at a Brooklyn seminary. The court granted a downward departure from the Federal Sentencing Guidelines 41 month sentence because of Friesel's minor role in the fraud and his history of working with disabled children. Friesel said he was deeply ashamed of breaking American civil law, which meant he also broke Jewish religious law. Four co-defendants were convicted in 1999, but their sentences were commuted by President Bill Clinton on his last day in office in 2001. The New York Post notes that the commutation came shortly after Hillary Rodham Clinton won almost every vote in New Square, NY in her race for the U.S. Senate. 

Full post as published by Religion Clause on July 27, 2010 (boomark / email).