A rabbi has been sentenced to 27 months in prison for fraud

Rabbi Avrum Friesel - who spent more than 11 years on the lam in Israel and Britain - said he was "deeply ashamed" for breaking American civil law, which meant he also broke Jewish religious law. The gray-bearded religious teacher later turned and smiled to about two dozen supporters wearing black velvet skull caps and traditional Hasidic black garb. After being extradited in 2009 from London, Friesel, pleaded guilty to participating in a scheme that defrauded various government programs of tens of millions of dollars during the 1980s. The scam - run by leaders of the Hasidic village of New Square in Rockland County - secured more than $10 million in crooked Pell grants for ineligible students at a Brooklyn seminary, and also stole from the Small Business Administration and the federal Section 8 housing program. Judge Barbara Jones cut Friesel a break from sentencing guidelines that called for up to 41 months in prison. She also ordered him to pay $11 million-plus in restitution. Only about $26,000 of the stolen money has been repaid. Four co-defendants were convicted in 1999, but had their sentences commuted by President Clinton on his last day in office in 2001, shortly after his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, won nearly every vote cast in New Square during her election to the U.S. Senate. The mastermind behind the scheme - Chaim Berger, a Holocaust survivor and founder of New Square - died while serving a six-year prison term in 2004. A seventh defendant, Nathan Adler, remains at large.