Chevra Hatzolah's CEO, Rabbi Dovid Cohen, has resigned under a cloud of suspicion. Cohen is (apparently) one of the co-conspirators in the looting of the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty by it's CEO, William E. Rapfogel, and he was fired along with Rapfogel in late August when the looting was – finally – noticed by the Met Council's board. Cohen's termination from the Met Council was not made public, however, while Rapfogel's was.
William E. Rapfogel, left and Rabbi
David Cohen, right, allegedly stole millions of dollars from programs
meant to help poor Jews
Chevra Hatzolah's CEO, Rabbi Dovid Cohen, has resigned under a cloud of suspicion.
Cohen is (apparently) one of the co-conspirators in the looting of the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty by it's CEO, William E. Rapfogel, and he was fired from his consultancy position there along with Rapfogel in late August when the looting was – finally – noticed by the Met Council's board.
Cohen's termination from the Met Council was not made public by the Met Council, however, while Rapfogel's was.
Why?
Perhaps because the beginning of Rapfogel's fraud dates back more than 21 years to the months before Rapfogel was hired by the Met Council and was initiated first by an unnamed co-conspirator of Rapfogel's. And that unnamed co-conspirator provides investigators with a direct link to 22 years of theft and looting. Rapfogel alone only appeared to provide investigators with a few years of minor stealing. And that, I think, is why Cohen's termination from the Met Council was hushed up.
As for the looting of the Met Council, I've just learned about another alleged facet of that theft.
Allegedly, Rapfogel and the Met Council diverted truckloads of food meant to feed the poor to a politically powerful Williamsburg hasidic businessman who owns a very large kosher supermarket. That hasidic businessman sold the food; the poor got none of it. It is unclear how much the businessman allegedly paid the Met Council under the table for the food or what percentage of profits was allegedly used to grease politicians. This businessman's supermarket was also allegedly the only supermarket in Williamsburg authorized to take Met Council food vouchers. What the businessman had to pay Rapfogel for that monopoly is unclear. Borough Park, on the other hand, has several Met Council-authorized grocers.
Were Rapfogel and Cohen the only Met Council staffers or board members who knew about these alleged frauds and benefited from them?
I think that is highly unlikely.
Is Rapfogel's wife Judy – a senior staffer for New York State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver – innocent in all this?
I think that is highly unlikely, too, and I also think that a vigorous investigation will lead directly to Silver himself.
The Met Council scandal should do nothing but grow wider and deeper in the coming months.
Stealing from the poor should never be tolerated, excused – or under prosecuted or under investigated.
Related Posts:
Rapfogel Allegedly Had A Haredi Co-Conspirator Inside The Met Council.
Rapfogel's Haredi Co-Conspirator Inside The Met Council Named.