Three Chabad-Lubavitch hasidim from Crown Heights were arrested by the FBI after they tried to buy 50 pounds of marijuana and have it shipped from El Paso, Texas to Brooklyn.
3 Chabad Hasidim Linked To Powerful Rubashkin And Jacobson Families Busted By Feds On Drug Trafficking Charges
Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com
Three Chabad-Lubavitch hasidim from Crown Heights were arrested by the FBI after they tried to buy 50 pounds of marijuana and have it shipped from El Paso, Texas to Brooklyn.
Boruch “Barry” Rapoport, 47, Moshe “Mony” Horenshtein, 27, and Menachem Jacobson, 30, were arraigned in Brooklyn federal court Wednesday but will be prosecuted in Texas, the New York Post reported.
Each was released on $500,000 bail. All three were dressed in full religious garb including with yarmulkes and tzitzit (ritual fringes) when arrested.
Jacobson’s bail was posted by Hunter College Chabad Rabbi Boruch Jacobson of the powerful Crown Heights Jacobson family.
Horenshtein’s bail was posted by members of the powerful Crown Heights Rubashkin Family. Three members of that family are convicted federal felons, including Sholom Rubashkin, who is serving a 27-year sentence for the Agriprocessors glatt kosher slaughterhouse fraud.
Besides his alleged drug dealing, Horenshtein reportedly plays in a hasidic band. His attorney is Crown Heights Chabad leader Zaki Tamir.
Horenshtein and Jacobson went to a handpicked warehouse on Atlantic and Nostrand avenues in Brooklyn to inspect the marijuana after it was ‘delivered’ from Texas. Jacobson reportedly told the FBI agent posing as a drug dealer that he was happy the marijuana was high quality.
“You can’t sell that Mexican stuff around here,” Jacobson allegedly said.
Horenshtein then gave a federal agent over $3,000 in cash to cover the marijuana’s transportation costs and took two bricks of pot as samples before he and Jacobson were arrested.
Rapoport is married, has kids and – at least on paper – lives on public assistance. He pays $108 in rent for his subsidized $1,400 apartment but reportedly handed an FBI agent posing as a drug dealer $95,000 in cash in a Brooklyn hotel to pay for the marijuana.
All three Chabad-Lubavitch hasidim were released on $500,000 bonds and are scheduled to appear in federal court in Texas September 26.
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