Rabbi Mordchai Fish, who pleaded guilty last year to laundering almost $1 million for Solomon Dwek, will be sentenced tomorrow morning in a federal court in Trenton, New Jersey.
Rabbi Mordechai Fish
Haredi Rabbi’s Sentecing For Money Laundering Set For Tomorrow
Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com
Rabbi Mordchai Fish, who pleaded guilty last year to laundering almost $1 million for Solomon Dwek, will be sentenced tomorrow morning in a federal court in Trenton, New Jersey, the New Jersey Star-Ledger reported.
Fish, a 59-year-old resident of Brooklyn, used religious charities he controlled to launder the money for Dwek. He is one of 46 people criminally charged as a result of Dwek’s role as a confidential federal informant. He faces as much as 20 years in federal prison and a fine that could be as large as $250,000.
Fish ran Dwek’s “dirty” money through his charities and returned “clean” money to Dwek, minus the fee Fish took for laundering it. Fish used an illegal haredi money transfer network that sent money to and from Israel. He pleaded to conducting approximately 15 money laundering transactions for Dwek, taking nearly $900,000 in checks from Dwek and returning more than $800,000 in “clean” cash to him.
According to court documents, Fish was reportedly among the most careful of the money launderers Dwek recorded. He changed cell phones over and over and over again and spoke using a creole of English, Yiddish and Hebrew and a code based on Talmudic references to disguise his dealings.
Dwek also paid bribes to politicians and recorded the transactions, snaring three mayors, two legislators, and many other public officials and candidates.
Five haredi rabbis, most Syrian, were nabbed for money laundering – including the Syrian haredi community’s elderly chief rabbi.
A Brooklyn haredi man was also charged with human organ trafficking.
32 of these people have pleaded guilty. Four were convicted at trial. Two more were acquitted.
Prosecutors dropped charges against four others, and one man snared by Dwek died not long after being arrested.
Dwek – the son of a Syrian rabbi – was arrested in a $50 million bank fraud tied to real estate scams he ran. He became the FBI's cooperating witness in response to that arrest.