Haredi Fraudster Busted By Fox

Allegedly cheated small businesses out of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

[Hat Tip: Big Bill.]

Comments

[Red Sox Fan]

It's almost more newsworthy when a Haredi is NOT on the news.

[Yossi Ginzberg]

Finally a good reason for always wearing a black hat: it's very useful for blocking the TV cameras from your face when you're being questioned or arrested!

What a horrific Chilul Hashem! I don't know this guy or anything about the case, but this video should be shown in every yeshiva to teach kids what a Chilul Hashem is, and why they should avoid making one.

[itchiemayer]

I found this very painful to watch. Yossi - I worry that the yeshiva world would resort to the ol' dan l'kaf zechus argument, we haven't heard his side of the story, yada yada yada.
I will say this for the man - He appears to have more busha than SMR.

[Ben]

For a long time black hat and black suite uniform helped him to trick people, since they would trust more a person who is deeply religious. If more stories like this come up the uniform may become a liability. Just watch how quickly these people will find a tradition, no doubt coming all the way from the mount Sinai, that will make them change it.

[shmuel]

Can't someone conduct a study of charedi fraudsters and determine why they do these things, what were they thinking, did they ever expect to get caught, etc.?

[mr moe]

He was practicing on the mic for the Agudah Convention.

[MisterApikoros]

BFD. Next to Bernie, his ripoffs and scams were just chump change.

[Allan]

That poor microphone! He abuses electronics too.

[sage]

A rhetorical question that comes to mind:

How many other Chabad-Haredi criminals are out there that have yet to be discovered?

[The Monsey Tzadik]

Haredis commit fraud ? and your next story going to be Chinese people eat rice ?

[ah-pee-chorus]

and yet he would probably never walk four amot without a kippah nor eat anything lacking his preferred hashgacha.
haredism leads to a life filled with meaningless rituals and sorely lacking in morality.

[Yossi Ginzberg]

Mr Apikoros- That's just asinine apologetics. You mean that this fellow wouldn't have taken more, had he been as talented as Madoff?

Bank robbers don't get prosecuted on how much they got. The amount is irrelevant, and he would have taken more had he been able. Your statement makes him sound like some nebech who was stealing only to feed his family.

Frum people should have a zero-tolerance policy for fraud. This man embarrassed ME and YOU, not just some amorphous others.

[itchiemayer]

I think Yossi is not familiar with FM's own MisterApikoros...

[Ben]

Totaly agree with Yossie Ginzberg, the guy took as much as his limited brain power allowed no more and no less.

Madoff was not more evil then this haredi thief. He was just more gifted criminal.

[Yochanan Lavie]

Shmarya missed a golden oppurnity for alliteration: Frum Fraudster Found by Fox.

[tanya]

APC, thanks for your astute expression. Mindless and meaningless rules while you screw the next guy. Torah scholars all, missing the point. Sad, I want my people to be ethical and moral, the rabbis I want to trust, how nieve of me. Sad state of affairs.

[MisterApikoros]

Mr. A. was just being sarcastic. BTW, the biggest crook named Bernie was Bernie Ebbers, the guy who brought us MCI Worldcom. He stole nearly $30 billion. While the press likes to say Madoff stole $65 billion, the true figure was around $18 billion, tops. The $65 billion was the inflated value of the portfolios from Bernie's statements.

If I buy something for a dollar, and someone appraises it for $10, then it's found to be worthless, how much did I lose?

[WoolSilkCotton]

Performing mindless rituals for some mysterious Man In The Sky is easy. Acting like a mensch when dealing with real live humans takes a lot more effort. For some religious folks, it's too much effort.

[ah-pee-chorus]

tanya : indeed.

[WoolSilkCotton]

I found it particularly troubling to find out that Madoff had season tickets for VIP seats behind home plate at Mets games, while at the same time he was defrauding the Met's owner.

[harold]

Former Refco Lawyer Convicted in $2.4 Billion Fraud

By David Glovin

July 10 (Bloomberg) -- Joseph Collins, Refco Inc.’s former outside lawyer, was convicted by a federal jury of helping Chief Executive Officer Phillip Bennett and other executives defraud investors of $2.4 billion.

Collins was convicted on five of 14 counts with which he was charged, including two counts of wire fraud, two counts of security fraud and conspiracy. A U.S. jury in New York returned its verdict today, almost two months after the trial began. Jurors, who began deliberating on June 30, were unable to reach a verdict on the other nine counts, and the judge declared a mistrial on them ...

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=a2ODPT6dGhfs#

[Shmarya]

And how is that germane?

Any of the principals Orthodox Jews?

Jews?

I don't think so.

If what you meant to say is non-Jews also steal, how does that excuse Jews who steal – especially Jews who claim to be religious?

[Yoel]

If someone does some "easy" mitzvot, but falls down on some of the challenging mitzvot; this does not mean the easy mitzvot were meaningless, or caused the negative behavior. There are many reasons (not necessarily rational reasons, however) for the easy mitzvot, one small part of which is for training purposes and to get close to Hashem. Now, I hope the logic here is clear. Anyone who is ragging on the easy mitzvot because of this sad incident had *outside* reasons to not like those "easy rituals". And those reasons existed before this sad incident came to light. Of course, there is a lot of irony when someone is punctilious on keeping kosher, and seems to forget that one of the 10 commandments is also a mitzvah too. But this, in itself, is not a strike against keeping kosher. The traditional view is that one still gets the reward for the "easy" mitzvah, along with a negative reward for the "hard mitzvah" that was broken.

[Yoel]

Some criminology expertise would be useful here. I have many questions on this: the guy seemed to be very embarrassed; would this imply that he is *not* sociopathic, and does have a conscience. Also, notice that a number of the victims appeared frum too, and one even noted that it seems this is the only way he knows how to make a living. Does this imply that he is not a criminal at heart? In which case, this is truly a great tragedy because it means the educational system has failed him (There is a gemora about the responsility a father has to his son to teach him a trade, also an allusion to this in Pirke Avot) In this case, it is a wide tragedy. For if it was only a case of a criminal personality, we might say this was only story about the human weakness of one individual. (Of course, we have no idea if that comment about him not knowing any other way to make a living is accurate or just the frustration of one victim; but I think there is a real serious lesson in all this. That lesson is that *more* vocational training could mean *less* violations of mitzvot)

[MisterApikoros]

There were a lot of Jews at Refco, and this was one of the most crooked commodities trading firms around. Don't know about Joe Collins. Didn't he play first base for the NY Yankees in the early 1950's?

As for Bernie Ebbers, he's a Baptist. But he's still the world's most crooked Bernie.

[critical_minyan]

this was a good one. the blowing makes him look like an idiot.
what a shandeh.

[Yochanan Lavie]

"Performing mindless rituals for some mysterious Man In The Sky is easy."

You mean lighting the Bat Signal so the caped crusader can sweep down?

[Dr. Dave]

Its like the Godfather. Going to church while killing all his enemies.

It's not that they don't know they're doing wrong. They just don't care.

[Dr. Dave]

Yoel you are wrong. This is Chilul Hashem b'rabim. While you could eat pork rather than die you cannot do so if it will lead to a public chilul Hashem.

At that point every mitzva gets elevated to the level of the big 3 (Murder, Idol worship, Incest) in that you should die rather than violate it.

[harold]

Any of the principals Orthodox Jews?

Jews?

Sorry, when I saw the name "Joseph" I assumed that he was a Jew.

[WoolSilkCotton]

At least he appeared to be embarassed.
Contrast that with Getzel Rubashkin's preening for the camera.

[ML]

negative reward. That's a good one.

[Yoel]

>Yoel you are wrong. This is Chilul Hashem b'rabim

I made two posts. In the second one I did not discuss or mention the issue of Chilul HaShem, but asked a series of probing questions. In the first post, I was not talking about the issue of Chilul HaShem either: only saying that it is illogical to say mitzvot are meaningless because one happens to witness a Chilul HaShem. Of course, we do know that such mockery, often unjustified, does occur, which is one of the reasons Chilul HaShems must be avoided.

So I guess I am not sure what I said that was wrong.

[Yoel]

>negative reward. That's a good one.

Thanks :)