Former Agriprocessors plant executive Sholom Rubashkin could face 21 to 27 years in prison for his role in a massive financial fraud scheme, a federal prosecutor said Wednesday.
Prosecutors plan to recommend a prison sentence that would range from 262 to 327 months, according to court papers filed by Assistant U.S. Attorney Peter Deegan Jr.
The suggested sentence – which a judge can accept or ignore – is based on federal guidelines that consider the number of victims, Rubashkin’s specific role in the crime and other factors.
Rubashkin was convicted in November of 86 counts of financial fraud for his role in the bank- and document-fraud scandal at Agriprocessors Inc. The plant’s former vice president is expected to challenge his convictions before the U.S. 8th Circuit Court of Appeals.
(Source: Des Moines Register)
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18 Responses
Hashem should grant Reb Sholom a Yeshua soon. Please daven for Sholom Mordechai HaLevi ben Rivka.
86 counts of what?? What did he do exactly? If he’s guilty then he deserves what’s coming to him. Sad but true!! Maybe others can learn a valuable lesson from this.
BS”D
Unless Nat Lewin succeeds beezras Hashem in getting him exonerated or many counts dropped after appeal, SMR will sadly serve far more time than Demjanjuk YMS, let alone many a garden variety murderer, armed robber or the like.
Given his present age compared to that of Madoff, with this sentence he will also serve more actual time than Madoff.
Golus, vie lang bist di………
Chutzpa has a steep price.
Yes, mkarpas. Your Chutzpa will have a steep price.
BS”D
Yes, when one has the chutzpah to stand up to the mafia run unions, it does have a steep price. It used to be that the price was ending up in a meat freezer. Now, they are more sophisticated and they get revenge through the courts and regulators.
SMR was not a great businessman and he had fools surrounding him. To go against the unions and succeed he had to be 100% clean and therefore beyond their revenge, which he was not. Still, he does not deserve this. He is not a Boesky (out by now) or a Madoff, let alone a Samet.
B’ezras HaSh-m may he get a much reduced sentence than what is mentioned here, and whatever it is, hopefully it will be reduced by at least half for good behavior.
May HaSh-m return him home safely to his family SOON!
What’s the balagan? He was convicted of multiple felony counts. His sentence reccommendation is according to federal guidelines.
#8, I have a question for you. I assume you are Jewish, based on your language. Do you realize what you are saying? We pray 3 times a day to G-D and we beseech him for mercy, parnassah, forgivness and lots more. We are sinners yet Hashem gives us what we want and does constant kindness to us every second of the day. What we see is infinate kindness that Hashem provides to us even though we are not worthy. He could easily say, you know what , you are sinning constantly why should I be kind, let you all suffer. Yet, he does not do that. What you are doing is contrary to what I said. You are gleeful that he is suffering because he committed some federal crimes. Do you want Hashem to be gleeful when you sin daily? How could a frum person in his right consiance show no mercy what so ever to a fellow yid? Are you Mr righteous? How sickening it is that there are elements in Klal Yisrael that are so stiff and evil, they relish in their own brothers pain. You people need to do some real soul searching and realize that we are Hashem’s creatures and when we fail to exhibit mercy to others, Hashem will Chas Vesholom pay you back in kind.
I once heard that the Munkatcher Rebbi Shlit”a was at his grandfathers tomb (the Minchas Eluzer), and he cried there Zaida! Zaida! you told people go to America they’re a Malchus She’ll Chesed! but look what’s going on in America now! those Reshoim are puting in jail for years so many (almost) innocent Jews for such small issues… (you finish the list), basically what he said was that now they’re actually a Malchus Horishu, the Munkatcher Rebbi had his own share of Tzores with them.
To Not Sure–how is this a small issue?
#9 — Sanhedrin meted out din according to halacha, showing no rachmonus. Why should an American civil court be “better” than emmesse dayanim? You’re simply naive.
#10 — America was never a malchus. It is a medina, and so far as medinos go there is more chesed in America than anywhere else on the globe.
Reading some of these posted comments I have to wonder what kind of yashrus ha’moach people are learning in yeshivos. I would dump chevrusos like these in a heartbeat.
To everyone who says that Reb Sholom Mordechai deserves it I say that the bank is not claiming fraud. So, who did he defraud? The federal government? If that is the case then it would be tax fraud. But, the government is not claiming tax fraud. So, what are the 86 counts for? What is the claim on the federal indictment?
In answer to #13, “Flatbush Bubby,” here is an article from http://www.crownheights.info (10/11/2009) on the charges against Rav Sholom Rubashkin:
CEDAR RAPIDS, IA — The former manager of Postville’s kosher meat plant goes on trial this week to face allegations that he cheated a bank, laundered more than $1 million, concealed months of fraud and failed to pay livestock providers on time.
Sholom Rubashkin will confront 91 fraud-related charges Tuesday in a trial that could effectively send him to prison for the rest of his life. The former executive at Agriprocessors Inc. will step into a Sioux Falls, S.D., federal courtroom with his wife, Leah, and their children for a legal struggle that could last four to six weeks.
Rubashkin has prepared for trial “intensely, but also with the peace of mind of a man who knows he will be, G-d willing, fully exonerated,” his son, Getzel Rubashkin, said in an e-mail. “He has been the source of strength and encouragement for those around him, instead of the other way around.”
The younger Rubashkin said his father has increased his involvement with the Yeshiva of Northeast Iowa, a Jewish high school, since his arrest last year. The family remains very close and has been overwhelmed by support from fellow Jews and other friends, Getzel Rubashkin said.
The trial comes more than a year after federal agents raided Agriprocessors and arrested 389 illegal immigrants. Rubashkin was indicted five months later and removed from the family-owned business that once was the nation’s largest supplier of kosher meat.
Prosecutors also have charged Rubashkin with 72 immigration-related charges for his alleged role in the scheme to hire illegal workers. The immigration trial is scheduled to begin one week after the bank fraud trial concludes.
Rubashkin has pleaded not guilty. He faces a maximum 1,995-year prison sentence if convicted of all 163 charges.
Three lower-level managers — Brent Beebe, Hosam Amara and Zeev Levi — also are named in the indictment with the plant itself. Amara and Levi remain at large; Beebe lives in Postville but will stand trial next year in Cedar Rapids.
Postville residents who helped immigrants in the raid’s aftermath said they plan to follow the trial online. Some expressed concern that Chabad-Lubavitch rabbis who perform kosher rituals at the plant might leave town if Rubashkin is convicted.
The trial’s outcome “will affect our community, especially the Jewish community, quite a lot,” said the Rev. Paul Ouderkirk, pastor at St. Bridget’s Catholic Church. “How much of an impact we feel, we don’t yet know.”
For years, Agriprocessors filled Postville with an unusual blend of New York rabbis, immigrant workers and longtime Iowans who produced “Aaron’s Best” kosher meats and products.
Agriprocessors filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in November 2008. The plant was sold to SHF Industries, a new Iowa company headed by Montreal businessman Hershey Friedman.
Some of the charges against Rubashkin are unusual for a federal criminal case, legal scholars said. Prosecutors allege that Rubashkin violated a 2002 order by the U.S. secretary of agriculture to pay cattle providers within 24 hours of a sale.
The charge stems from a 1921 law, the U.S. Packers and Stockyards Act. The law requires “prompt payment” to protect livestock producers. Two scholars who studied the law said they had never seen it invoked in a criminal case.
“This is the first time in my life that I’ve heard of that,” said Chris Kelley, a University of Arkansas law school professor.
Prosecutors also will present evidence that Rubashkin ordered employees to create fake invoices so he could collect advances on a revolving $35 million bank loan, Assistant U.S. Attorney Peter Deegan Jr. wrote in court papers. Prosecutors argue that Rubashkin sent the false papers to First Bank Business Capital in St. Louis that overstated the value of the plant’s collateral.
Rubashkin was supposed to repay the bank with money from an “accounts receivable” fund, but he allegedly diverted the payments to keep the money.
“By diverting the payments, the defendant was, in effect, stealing the bank’s collateral and then lying to the bank about it,” Deegan wrote.
Defense lawyer Guy Cook of Des Moines has said his client denies all of the charges. Cook said he could not comment because of ethics rules, but he has suggested in court papers that others were responsible for routing the money.
The fraud and immigration trials were supposed to take place in Cedar Rapids. But U.S. District Judge Linda Reade moved the trial to Sioux Falls because of pretrial publicity that she said could influence potential jurors.
The high-profile case has turned contentious at times. Defense lawyers in September filed a motion to dismiss the charges, on grounds that prosecutors abused their power and used grand jury hearings to “lock in” statements by their witnesses.
Reade rejected the claim.
Reade also warned lawyers not to speak with the media during a recent hearing, because of defense statements that prosecutors said amounted to trying Rubashkin in the media.
Prosecutors also have revised their charges against Rubashkin seven times, which defense lawyers and legal experts say is unprecedented.
Getzel Rubashkin said he plans to attend the trial to support his father, a man who “was never too busy to help people whether he was at home, at the office, or on the road.
”Anyone who ‘knows’ my father from media reports does not know him at all,“ he said. ”The character portrayed was created out of whole cloth, as anyone who knows my father immediately recognizes. … My father is a kind man, dedicated to helping others, be it in the sphere of family, community (both Jewish and non-Jewish) or beyond.“
25 years??????
the underwear bomber from last week, who attempted to kill almost 300 is said to be getting 20 years -the world is a crazy place
rmorr, what does that article have to do with what I have posted? It is irrelevant now. I still ask the question. Your article misses the point.
Flatbush Bubby, the answer to your question about what the indictment accused him of is as follows. It charges him with defrauding the bank by inflating his receivables to look as though he had more money flowing in from customers than in reality he had. His intention was to show that AgriProcessors was able to cover the loans the bank gave him, and to keep his interests payments to the bank coming.
The way prosecutors arrived at 86 counts in the indictment is by duplicating the same charge over and over again to account for every aspect of the paperwork that contained inflated amounts. This is where the first major injustice against Rubashkin began.
The second major injustice that robbed him of due process was when the judge refused to allow Rubashkin’s attorneys to bring expert witness testimony that would have established that NO fraud was committed, because the bank was well aware that the numbers were inflated and they didn’t care. Fraud means intent to deceive. When both parties are on the same page, fraud doesn’t apply.
The strongest evidence that the bank did not care about the paperwork is that when bank officials sued for the money they lost when Agri went bankrupt, as Flatbush Bubby pointed out, they did not accuse the company of defrauding them!
That testifies loud and clear to the fact that the prosecutors took actions that were not criminal and dressed them up in the guise of bank fraud, which IS criminal. They threw not only “the book”, but the whole “library” at Sholom Rubashkin.
A600kilobear got it right when he said “to go against the unions and succeed he had to be 100% clean and therefore beyond their revenge, which he was not.”
“Clean” in this context means there had to be no irregularities anywhere that could be seized upon and turned into felonies by federal prosecutors looking for a scapegoat. But we only know this in hindsight. How was he to know that unscrupulous would go after him with such viciousness?
Thank-you nr. You really cleared things up for me.
mrorr, why don’t you just show your union card and leave the rest of us alone?