The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of California announced that yesterday a California federal district judge sentenced Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein -- rabbi of Chabad of Poway during a much-publicized shooting in 2019-- to 14 months in custody for his part in a multi-million dollar fraud scheme. Goldstein plead guilty to fraud charges in 2019. (See prior posting.) He was also ordered to pay $2.8 million in restitution. According to the U.S. Attorney's Office:
[W]hile Rabbi Goldstein was director of the Poway synagogue, he received at least $6.2 million in phony contributions to the Chabad and affiliated charities and secretly refunded up to 90 percent of the donations to the “donors.” After Rabbi Goldstein provided these donors with fake receipts, they illegally claimed huge tax deductions for these nonexistent donations, and the rabbi kept about 10 percent ... for himself....
Rabbi Goldstein also admitted that he defrauded three different Fortune 500 companies by tricking them into matching supposed charitable donations of their employees....
Rabbi Goldstein ... also helped his brother ... conceal approximately $700,000 in income by allowing him to use Chabad bank accounts to deposit his income, thereby hiding it from the IRS. As his cut, Rabbi Goldstein kept 10 percent....
... Goldstein and another defendant ... used false information and fabricated invoices and other records to pretend to be eligible for emergency funds, grants or donations, and private loans [from FEMA and the state of California].
According to The Forward's report on the sentencing, prosecutors had recommended a much more lenient sentence-- 8 months of home confinement and 4 years probation.
