Rabbi pleads guilty in money transfer corruption case

The spiritual leader for the Syrian Jewish community in the United States has pleaded guilty to operating an illegal money transfer business, as part of a massive federal probe into international money laundering and political corruption in New Jersey. Saul Kassin, the chief rabbi of Congregation Sharee Zion in Brooklyn, New York, pleaded guilty to one count of unauthorized money transmitting, and agreed to forfeit nearly $370,000 to the government. He entered the plea in a federal courtroom in Trenton, and was charged in New Jersey because of a transaction that had taken place in Deal, a Jersey Shore town that is a popular summer residence for members of the Syrian Jewish community of New York and New Jersey. Kassin was among five rabbis arrested in July 2009 and charged with money laundering. There are 46 defendants in the wider federal investigation. The two tracks of the probe, which became New Jersey's largest corruption case, were tied together by a man named Solomon Dwek, the son of a prominent rabbi from Deal, who agreed to wear a wire for federal authorities after pleading guilty to a $50 million bank fraud. Alternately posing as a businessman and a corrupt real estate developer, Dwek ensnared several members of his own Syrian Jewish community, as well as other Orthodox Jews, on money laundering charges before branching out to New Jersey officials in what prosecutors say was a cash-for-development assistance scheme. According to criminal complaints filed by federal prosecutors, rabbis in Deal and Brooklyn laundered tens of millions of dollars as part of an operation between the United States and Israel. They used charitable entities that they or their synagogues controlled to deposit checks, working with an Israeli who would send huge amounts of money back to the United States through so-called "cash houses" in Brooklyn. The rabbis typically kept 5% to 10% for themselves, according to court documents. Kassin, as part of his plea deal, admitted that he accepted thousands of dollars in checks from Dwek made out to the Magen Israel Society, a charitable organization Kassin controlled. Kassin then issued checks from the account to other organizations, taking 10% commissions from the transactions. Kassin admitted he knew the checks made out to the fund were not used for charitable purposes.