Rabbi admits to being a money launderer

In a taped conversation with government witness Solomon Dwek, Eliahu Ben Haim, a well-respected Deal rabbi, makes a startling admission. "This is illegal, what we're doing," Ben Haim, 58, of Long Branch said to Dwek on Oct. 31, 2007, according to court documents. A year earlier, Ben Haim, at the time the principal rabbi at the Congregation Ohel Yaacov in Deal, bluntly stated, "I'm a money launderer. .. I'm going to be arrested." On July 23, 2009, Ben Haim and 43 others were arrested in a massive FBI sting that targeted political corruption and money laundering. Ben Haim has pleaded not guilty. Charged with laundering $1.5 million through Dwek, a failed real estate developer who turned government witness after being arrested by the FBI, Ben Haim has taken a leave of absence from the Ocean Avenue synagogue whose 2002 construction he helped supervise. His father, Haham Baruch Ben Haim, who died in 2005, was a highly respected rabbi and scholar who had led the congregation for 55 years. In April 2010, three Brooklyn men — Yeshaye Ehrental, Schumel Cohen and Akiva Aryeh Weiss — pleaded guilty in federal court to transmitting up to $1.8 million to Ben Haim and Dwek, the government's key witness in the case against the rabbi. Ben Haim's lawyer, Lawrence S. Lustberg, recently requested a postponement of trial until May 31 2010 to engage in additional plea negotiations.