Chabad Charities That Allegedly Laundered Millions Of Dollars For Agriprocessors Must Repay Only Thousands

Chabad charities that some allege were used to siphon millions of dollars out of Agriprocessors and to the Rubashkin family to avoid their loss during a possible bankruptcy filing have agreed to repay pennies on the dollars they were given by Agriprocessors when it was insolvent.

 

Charities that got millions in donations from Agriprocessors to repay thousands
JEFF REINITZ • Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier

POSTVILLE – Charities that received millions of dollars in donations from Agriprocessors before it declared bankruptcy are paying some of the money back.

On Wednesday, the trustee handling the now-defunct kosher meatpacker's Chapter 7 case announced a settlement with Colel Chabad, the longest-running charity in Israel.

Colel Chabad received more than $4 million from Agriprocessors in the two years before the company's bankruptcy, according to court records. The trustee said the company received nothing of value for the money --- which included 64 payments ranging between $1,445 and $200,000 --- and the payments were made when Agriprocessors was insolvent.

The trustee made the claim seeking repayment in November 2011, and the charity raised defenses that the trustee said would make it unlikely the trustee would recover a signification part of the money through litigation.

On Wednesday, the trustee filed papers stating two sides agreed to a $50,000 settlement.

The trustee said the agreement is in the best interest of the estate given the facts.

The settlement is pending court approval.

Colel Chabad is a non-profit organization that runs soup kitchens and medical clinics and offers services to widows and orphans. It also has an immigrant aid program.

In December, the trustee announced a settlement with the charity Bet Kahila-Eighth Degree for $82,000. The organization had received $2.89 million from Agriprocessors.

The trustee is also seeking repayment from other charities, including the Torah Education Program of Northeast Iowa, which allegedly received $11 million, court records state.

Agriprocessors filed for bankruptcy in 2008 following an immigration raid. Former company vice president Sholom Rubashkin is currently serving time for federal financial charges.

All of these are Chabad-linked charities. Colel Chabad is run by a cousin of Rubashkin's. Bet Kahila is Chabad Rabbi Asher Zeilingold whose Untited Mehadrin Kosher was one of Agriprocessors kosher supervisors. The Torah Education Program of Northeast Iowa was controlled by Sholom Rubashkin himself.

Update 3:58 pm CDT – The AP reports:

…His hands and feet shackled, Hosam Amara walked slowly into the federal courtroom in Cedar Rapids. Bald, short and stocky, the 48-year-old former poultry production manager at the Agriprocessors plant in Postville wore an orange jailhouse jumpsuit and a stone-faced demeanor.

Amara pleaded not guilty to an indictment charging him with conspiring to harbor workers who were in the country illegally and conspiring to provide false immigration papers at what was the nation's largest kosher slaughterhouse. He faces 25 counts related to harboring and two counts related to document fraud.

Amara was ordered jailed pending a trial scheduled for July 1 after assistant U.S. Attorney Peter Deegan said the government considered him a flight risk.…

Prosecutors say Amara managed the second shift on the poultry side of the plant, exercising "substantial control" over production and working as a lieutenant of Agriprocessors vice president Sholom Rubashkin, whose family owned the company.

Prosecutors say Amara knowingly employed immigrants who were not in the country legally but helped keep them off the books by putting them on the payroll of a separate company. They say he allowed employees to obtain and use Social Security and green cards that he knew were false.

In addition to Amara, the indictment charged Rubashkin and former plant managers Brent Beebe and Zeev Levi with taking part in the conspiracy.

Prosecutors say that Levi has also apparently fled to Israel and remains a fugitive. Beebe reached a plea agreement in 2010 in which he pleaded guilty to a document fraud charge and was sentenced to 10 months in prison.

Rubashkin was convicted in 2009 on separate financial fraud charges and sentenced to 27 years in prison. After his conviction in that case, prosecutors dropped the immigration charges against him rather than go through with a second trial.…

Comments

[WoolSilkCotton, I am a work of art as well as a sports and rock superstar]

No matter what the settlement agreements say, the frumma are not going to repay a penny. Good luck trying to collect from them.

[Shmarya Rosenberg]

WSC –

No, they will probably repay the pittance immediately to close the case.

[dd]

what a shame to make chaBAD pay pennies .

in that case the multiple felon shalom ruBASHkin deserves his 27 years stuck in a cell and not see the daylight .

[WoolSilkCotton, I am a work of art as well as a sports and rock superstar]

I've never known any frumma to repay anything immediately.

I'll believe it when it's verified as having been paid.

[ah-pee-chorus]

+++--- and the payments were made when Agriprocessors was insolvent.+++

am i correct that this means that aside from lying to the bank about the amount of receivables, he knowingly diverted over $15M of what should have been used to repay the loan. this was the banks money. once insolvent he knew the bank would never get it repaid from agri ongoing profits.

[Shmarya Rosenberg]

APC –

He sent this money to these charities but did not pay his employees medical insurance premiums. People got sick, went to the doctor and found out their insurance had been cancelled. This is really sick.

[Nigritude Ultramarine]

"People got sick, went to the doctor and found out their insurance had been cancelled. This is really sick."

I hope Sholom Rubbishcan falls in the shower, cracks his skull and dies.

וּבַאֲבֹד רְשָׁעִים רִנָּה ...

[s]

whatever happened to the employee who needed treatment for cancer and found out she/he did not have insurance despite money deducted from paychecks for it? Hopefully someone in social services was able to get treatment for that person.

[ah-pee-chorus]

@ Shmarya Rosenberg | May 03, 2013 at 05:03 PM

this IS sick. i wonder what percentage of those "donations" did a quick u-turn right back to him after they took their cut.

[AGRI-vated Angel]

I know of three illnesses left with no medical coverage that were beyond anyone's ability to afford.
. . . one was on kidney dialysis,
another with a liver transplant-needing a host of anti-rejection meds,
'n the spouse of another, with advanced curable cancer, if treated in immediacy. ://

[Abu Jihad Schneerson]

These guys are a shanda for Jews and Gentiles alike!

[R. Wisler]

Boy, Asher Zeilengold must be a very rich man these days.

[AGRI-vated Angel]

In earnest, we all know the monies found 'their' way 'back home', after the donations were recorded, of course . . . (minus a little incentive per the right ppl) ;))

[Abracadabra]

So 17.89 million went out to CHARITIES while his company was supposedly falling apart?

Why isn't the US Attorney's office auditing the charities to trace those monies? There is no "need" to give money to charity when one is not making money themselves, and certainly not 17.89 million.

Where did the 11-million that went to the charity that Sholom Rubashkin controlled go to? If it went to his family members, or his friends, it should be paid back to the bank. It was no doubt "laundered."

What is crazy is the family keeps crying poverty and asking for money to "free" SMR. Go get it from the 11-million of that charity SMR controlled.

Where are the Feds on this? 11-million and they're just shrugging it off?

And those 2 other Chabad charities should be audited for a good few years worth of records to see where those funds made their way to.

What a web of lies and deceit this family spun!

It's already been said how sick it is that he didn't pay his workers' health insurance premiums even though he told them they were covered and withheld the money for the coverage from their paychecks. He has blood on his hands for the sickness and suffering caused by doing that, while giving 17.89 million to "charities" while claiming he didn't have the money to pay the health insurance.

But on top of that - the utter CHUTZPA to then ask for money from unsuspecting people to pay for his "Pidyon Shevuyim" - is just - it's a slap in the face to HIS OWN people!!

Would anyone be surprised if some of that "charity" made it to Pinny Lipshitz's "charity" organization(s)? What with all his caring about SMR so much, running every fundraiser, collecting all the "charity" to pay the legal fees, and never being open to an independent audit.

[s]

Cedar Rapids newspaper has an article on that town now five years after the raid. How some Somalians are overheard speaking Spanish and some Hispanics over heard speaking Somalian. their kids getting along well in the schools