Sprung kosher fraud back in B’klyn
Thousands of people broke out the vodka and gave a hero’s welcome to a convicted fraudster who returned to Brooklyn after being freed by President Trump.
Sholom Rubashkin, 57, was sentenced to 27 years in prison in 2009 on multiple felony convictions for defrauding a bank that lent his Iowa-based kosher meatpacking plant millions of dollars.
Rubashkin had served eight years when Trump commuted his sentence, earning plaudits from both the felon and the Orthodox Jewish community.
“God should bless him [Trump] and the United States of America,” Rubashkin told the Vos Iz Neias Web site outside his home in Monsey, NY, where he was greeted by throngs of people Wednesday night.
He later traveled to Brooklyn to visit the Crown Heights headquarters of Chabad Lubavitch, which was instrumental in lobbying for his release. There, scores of celebrants sipped on Smirnoff vodka to toast the newly freed man.
One attendee likened the celebrations to a 1987 outpouring after a Brooklyn judge ruled that the grandson of a former Chabad leader could not sell the group’s religious texts as his inheritance.
“Last night, it was a big celebration, like when 35 years ago the rabbi’s books were released,” Rabbi Mikhael Cohen, 56, told The Post Thursday. “We have a great president. We should vote for Donald Trump next time. He does things right. We finally have a president that does not follow the bubble of the politically correct concept.”
After the Chabad event, Rubashkin visited his parents’ Borough Park home, according to Yeshiva World, which posted video showing a sea of people singing and dancing in the streets and inside homes as they welcomed the felon.
The reunion with his parents was an emotional scene as onlookers let out joyous shouts and broke into impromptu songs, according to Vos Iz Neias.
Rubashkin lied about collateral when he took out a $35 million loan for his Agriprocessors meatpacking operation in Postville, Iowa, causing the bank to lose $26 million when he declared bankruptcy after federal investigators raided the plant and found more than 300 suspected undocumented immigrants working there, according to The New York Times.
While Rubashkin’s sentence was commuted, his conviction on 86 felony fraud counts was left intact.