Rabbi Hecht: Media Reports That Govt. Offered Plea Deal To Rubashkin, Is Total Fiction
New York - In an exclusive to VIN News Rabbi Shea Hecht, of the Brooklyn Based National Committee for Furtherance of Jewish Education (NCFJE). takes aim at the media for reporting that Sholom Rubashkin refused government offers for a plea deal.A recent article in the Des Moines Register claimed that Rubashkin had been offered a plea deal by Federal prosecutors prior to his trial but he refused, contrary to the advice of supporters.
"Everything they reported concerning a plea deal is total fiction," said Rabbi Hecht, "Sholom Rubashkin never considered a plea deal, because the government never put a deal on the table for him to consider!"
Rabbi Hecht further stated that the Register's reports of plea deal meetings which supposedly took place at the Brooklyn headquarters of NCFJE have "absolutly no basis in reality".
"The quality of journalism that I've seen from so many media sources has been nothing short of shocking," he said.
Rabbi Shea Hecht, a leading Chabad Lubavitch rabbi who has provided support to Rubashkin’s defense, told the Forward that Rubashkin, 49, wanted to strike a plea bargain with the U.S. attorneys to avoid a jury trial.
“There were negotiations — an offer was put on the table,” Hecht said. “He had to refuse the offer because compared to what he did wrong, they were asking for too much. There was no way that a man should give the prime of his life away.”