Rabbis Get Jail in Funds Theft
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NEW YORK — Two New York rabbis who admitted pocketing hundreds of thousands of dollars in federal funds earmarked for Holocaust survivors were sentenced Thursday to 33 months in prison apiece.
Rabbi Jacob Bronner, who served as an unpaid advisor on Jewish issues to former New York Mayor Edward I. Koch, and Rabbi Efroim Stein, who controlled Project Social Care, a nonprofit group designed to aid the survivors, were also ordered to pay $162,500 each in restitution at their sentencing in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn.
The two misused funds from a $2.5-million grant that Project Social Care received in 1995 from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, prosecutors said.
Prosecutors said the rabbis paid for nonexistent services from companies that paid them kickbacks and funneled money to an outside group that also kicked back cash to businesses the pair controlled.
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