Conviction of Milton Balkany Marks Fall Of Oft-Investigated Haredi Power Broker

The storied career of an indomitable ultra-Orthodox political fixer appears to have entered its final phase this week with the conviction of Rabbi Milton Balkany, known to the press as the Brookyn Bundler. Balkany was found guilty in federal court on November 10 of attempting to extort $4 million from a hedge fund manager. The rabbi is home on $1 million bail, allowed to attend synagogue once a week as he awaits sentencing.

Conviction of Milton Balkany Marks Fall of Oft-Investigated Ultra-Orthodox Power Broker
By Josh Nathan-Kazis • Forward

The storied career of an indomitable ultra-Orthodox political fixer appears to have entered its final phase this week with the conviction of Rabbi Milton Balkany, known to the press as the Brookyn Bundler.

Balkany was found guilty on November 10 of attempting to extort $4 million out of Steven A. Cohen, a hedge fund manager. The rabbi is home on $1 million bail, allowed to attend synagogue once a week as he awaits sentencing.

Balkany, whose only official job is dean of a Boro Park girls’ yeshiva, has been known for decades as a major donor to conservative politicians, capable of bringing home significant government cash to pet causes in the Orthodox community. He has also escaped conviction in a litany of scandals involving government money.

His fall began in May, when he was indicted on charges that he had threatened to reveal alleged instances of insider trading involving Cohen, who runs the hedge fund SAC Capital Advisors. Balkany said that he was in touch with an inmate in an upstate New York federal prison, who would talk to federal investigators unless Cohen paid Balkany off – $2 million to his girls’ yeshiva, $2 million to a second yeshiva. According to the indictment, Balkany told lawyers for Cohen’s firm that cash to the second yeshiva would eventually be repaid.

In surreptitiously recorded tapes of conversations between Balkany and representatives of SAC Capital played during the trial, Balkany boasted of his political connections. “Every six weeks, a different senator from Washington comes to my house for lunch or dinner,” said Balkany on the tapes, citing senators and former senators, including Oren Hatch, Joseph Lieberman, Arlen Specter, Ted Kennedy, and Max Baucus, according to the Village Voice.

There’s little cause to assume Balkany to be exaggerating. The catalog of boldface political players gives a hint as to the level of Balkany’s access, carefully cultivated through years of donations. Dubbed the “Brooklyn Bundler” by the now-defunct Common Cause magazine in 1990, Balkany has been known as a major giver with ties to deep ultra-Orthodox pockets and a regular on the political benediction circuit.

He is tied by marriage to the Rubashkin clan, which ran the kosher meatpacking firm Agriprocessors until it was hit by a number of lawsuits [sic] in 2008. [Actually, it was the indictment of Sholom Rubashkin on almost 200 financial fraud, money laundering and immigration counts and the company’s inability to hire legal workers after the May 2008 immigration raid that pushed Agriprocessors into bankruptcy. The company was run by a court-appointed trustee until its sale to SHF Industries in 2009. – Shmarya.]

But Balkany is also known for being party to a series of funding scandals, and for escaping blame in all but the latest incident.

A 2000 Daily News report found that Balkany, a major donor to the campaign of then-New York mayor Rudolf Guiliani, was charging Jewish families for help accessing a day care voucher program for low-income families. The report raised suspicions that applications submitted via Balkany received special consideration from the city; the vast majority of day care vouchers issued through the program had gone to one Brooklyn zip code in Boro Park, where Balkany’s school and several others he helped were located. This was more than triple the number of vouchers distributed in Manhattan and the Bronx combined. Balkany was never charged in this case.

In 2003, Balkany was the subject of a federal indictment charging him with misuse of $700,000 granted to his yeshiva by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which was intended to be used to pay the mortgage on a new building for disabled preschoolers. Instead, the complaint alleged, the money was used for other expenses, including $78,000 that he simply signed over to himself.

At the time the grant was made, the secretary of HUD was Andrew Cuomo, currently the governor-elect of New York State.

The charges in the 2003 indictment were not pursued by prosecutors after Balkany cut a deal, admitting he was wrong and agreeing to travel restrictions and to pay restitution to HUD.

Part of Balkan's scam was meant to curry favor with the Justice Department, which he hoped would cause it to reduce his brother-in-law Sholom Rubashkin's sentence.

Comments

[danny]

This dipshit thought he could shmooze the Justice Department into reducing his brother-in-law's sentence. Not too bright.

[Menachem Mendel lll]

"Remember this day, in which ye came out of Brooklyn, out of the house of scammery and embezzlement: for by strength of hand the Lord brought you out from this place and into the federal prison system" (Exodus 13:3).

Please remember to chant the holy words Yasher Koach thrice at our upcoming farbrengen.

Moshiach Uber Alles!

[Menachem Mendel lll]

Interesting that this piece of shit and long with his lowlife brother in law profess their innocence along with all the other convicted rapists, pedophiles, ponzists, murderers, drunks, drug dealers and Roman Catholic priest who are rotting languishing behind bars.

[tommy]

Move over Gambino, Genovese, Lucchese, Bonnano and Colombo. It's the Rubashkin-Balkany crew! Please give a warm welcome to New York's sixth crime family...

...because even the Mafia needs a Jewish uncle.

[state of disgust]

It took me awhile to figure out where I had seen the picture above before. Then it struck me: its Odd Job from an old James Bond movie, a few pounds lighter and with a white beard.

[Monseymaidel]

What a mess. Does anyone believe he will run? Certainly not the Feds.

[jay]

Oh come on now, he's nothing like Lucchese , Gambino or Bonanno. He takes after the great yichus of Buchalter, Reles, Siegel, Lansky, and Rothstein!!

[sage]

+++It took me awhile to figure out where I had seen the picture above before. Then it struck me: its Odd Job from an old James Bond movie, a few pounds lighter and with a white beard.

Posted by: state of disgust | November 13, 2010 at 04:59 PM+++

Right on SOD!!!!!!!!

"Goldfinger" is my favorite Bond Movie.

[Bruriah]

Unfortunately, the man is so full of himself that he truly believes in his innocence and the righteousness of his actions, to date. His biggest crime is that he's raised his children with the same errant belief that they answer to a higher calling and the laws of god and man are perverted into some amoral hodge podge meant to justify their actions.

[state of disgust]

Thanks Sage!
I guess its just the Hamburg, but the name "Odd Job" sure seems to fit.

[tommy]

Oh come on now, he's nothing like Lucchese , Gambino or Bonanno. He takes after the great yichus of Buchalter, Reles, Siegel, Lansky, and Rothstein!!

Wait! You forgot Zwillman and Dalitz!

Actually, though, I think this group has more in common with the Italians than the Jewish gangsters of yesteryear. Paraphrasing one Mafia expert, those Jewish gangsters built empires; the Italians built dynasties. Rubashkin and Co. are definitely trying to build a dynasty out of their criminal convictions, if not their actual criminal estates.

[chaim36]

I have a great suggestion. Why not BURN his hat and Rubashkin's hat when they burn chometz . This would help mitigate the huge chilul hashem created by both of these criminals.

[Jacob]

PIDYIN SHVUYIN!!! We need money to save Milty!!!

[samantha]

sholom rubashkin, now milt balkany.... who's next ?

[annie.dear]

you say this man is so full of himself that he truly believes in his innocence and the righteousness of his actions..i think he's just sick. i mean, obviously he has some mental issues.