Posted on 01/13/2004 7:30:53 PM PST by doug from upland
Source: CLICK.
THE JOURNAL NEWS
(Original publication: Jan. 18, 2002)
Three of the four New Square men whose sentences were reduced by then-President Clinton have been released from federal prison after their shortened terms ended.
The fourth man whose sentence was shortened by Clinton in January 2001 is scheduled to be released in March.
"Obviously, we are very happy these three men are back home with their families," said Rabbi Mayer Schiller, a spokesman for the New Square Hasidic Jewish community in Ramapo. "We are looking forward to the last man's return home and the end of all of this."
Released from prison since December were Kalmen Stern, Benjamin Berger and David Goldstein. Jacob Elbaum is scheduled for release in March, since he began serving his prison sentence two months after the other men because his wife was pregnant.
Stern was released Tuesday to a halfway house, where he will serve out the remaining few months of his sentence. The other two men were released in December, Schiller said.
In 1999, a U.S. District Court jury convicted the four men of conspiracy, fraud, embezzlement and other charges.
The men were found guilty of conspiring to steal tens of millions of dollars from the late 1970s into the early 1990s from government antipoverty grants, loans and subsidies. They also created phony schools and educational programs with phantom students to get federal money.
In October 1999, Judge Barbara Jones sentenced Berger to 2 1/2 years, Goldstein to 5 3/4 years, Stern to 6 1/2 years and Elbaum to 4 3/4 years.
President Clinton, on his last day in office, Jan. 20, 2001, ignored recommendations of federal prosecutors and commuted the sentences of Goldstein, Stern and Elbaum to about 2 1/2 years in prison. He shortened Berger's term to two years.
Once released, each man still must pay 10 percent of their gross monthly income toward repaying $11.6 million stolen from the government through a phony school in Brooklyn.
Clinton's sentence commutations were among several of his last-day pardons investigated by the U.S. Attorney's Office in Manhattan and the FBI.
Investigators were looking into whether Clinton shortened the men's sentences in exchange for New Square's overwhelming vote for Hillary Rodham Clinton in the November 2000 Senate race.
Hillary Clinton met with the Hasidic community's grand rabbi, David Twersky, at his home in New Square in August 2000. The community gave 1,400 votes to Hillary Clinton, opposed to 12 votes for Republican Rick Lazio.
The rabbi and other village leaders met privately with the Clintons at the White House in late December, a month before the president issued his pardons and clemencies.
The New Square community leaders and the Clintons have all denied any exchange of votes for the shortened sentences.
The New Square leaders previously sought assistance on behalf of the four men from New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who was a candidate for Senate at the time, and U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.
Several Rockland elected officials, state legislators and community leaders who attended the August 2000 meeting at the grand rabbi's house testified before a federal grand jury and said the four men were not discussed. No one has been charged in the more than yearlong investigation into Clinton's pardons. The U.S. Attorney's Office declined comment.
Three other New Square men indicted in the 1997 case fled prosecution.
One of them, Chaim Berger, one of New Square's founders in the 1950s and a longtime elected official, was arrested in Israel in 1998 and returned last year to the United States to stand trial. Berger, 76, a Holocaust survivor, is being held without bail pending trial.
Schiller said the community still believes the continued prosecution of Berger is unjust, and his incarceration tempers the joy of the other men being released.
"I can't say everybody is jumping for joy for the release of the men because there is this cloud," Schiller said. "We're still very sad about the plight of Chaim Berger. This is a tight-knit community, so a person's joy can be tempered by another person's pain."
It was revealed yesterday that the US Attorney’s office is investigating whether Mr Clinton commuted the sentences of four Hasidic men convicted of stealing millions in government funds in exchange for votes for his wife’s Senate campaign.
The community of New Square voted overwhelmingly for Hillary when she won her Senate seat in November. Many Hasidic communities tend to vote in blocs, and because of that, politicians aggressively court their leaders. Mrs Clinton has said that she sat in on a December meeting with supporters of clemency for the four Hasidic men, but said she played no part in her husband’s decision to commute their sentences.
‘‘I did not play any role whatsoever,’’ Mrs Clinton said last month. ‘‘I had no opinion about it.’’
Mrs Clinton travelled to New Square during her Senate campaign and met Grand Rabbi David Twersky. She got 1,400 votes in New Square; her Republican rival Rick Lazio received 12.
The president and his wife, then New York’s senator elect, met for about 45 minutes on December 22 with two leaders from the New Square Hasidim who supported clemency for the four men. The meeting took place in the White House Map Room.
It is unusual for a first lady to sit in on a clemency meeting, but Mrs Clinton said that meeting was the first time they had spoken to her of the clemency.
The New York Times said yesterday: Democrats say they fear that the Clintons’ persistent troubles not only leave the party with a gaping leadership vacuum, but also with unwanted attention on a former president who is trying to salvage his damaged reputation and a new Senator from New York who is trying to find her footing.
In New York state, Jewish votes are diluted by the liberalism of the surrounding community, and even a substantial shift into the Republican column is unlikely to swing the state. In 2000, Hillary Clinton won her Senate seat even as her opponent, moderate Republican Rep. Rick Lazio, captured 45 percent of the Jewish vote, according to exit polls.
Can anyone help find an anonymous source that is referenced below in bold? It may be a smoking gun and really important. (excerpt)
For Clinton, the Aug. 8 meeting was a like a splash of cool water in the desert. Unlike more hostile receptions in Orthodox quarters, New Square welcomed her with warmth, participants agreed.
``The rebbetzin and Hillary got along extremely well," a Democratic campaign source recalled. ``The rebbe endorsed her."
But spokesmen for Clinton and New Square emphatically state that the issue of the four imprisoned men was not brought up then or anytime before Election Day.
``It was raised sometime after the election," Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson told The Jewish Week Tuesday. Asked specifically when, Wolfson said he did not know.
New Square spokesman Rabbi Mayer Schiller also vigorously assured that the issue was not brought up in August. But other Rockland County political insiders dispute their claims.
``From day one [the issue of commutation] was part and parcel of the whole thing," said one source, who spoke on condition of anonymity. ``[New Square representatives] spelled out clearly their interest in her helping those who were incarcerated."
After the August meeting, New Square officials began campaigning for Clinton, even outside the village, though Clinton's positions on such core issues as school vouchers, abortion and Israel were in opposition to New Square.
Community members drove around in cars with loudspeakers urging -- in Yiddish -- for Rockland County Orthodox residents to vote for her. A Yiddish weekly endorsed her based on lobbying from New Square.
``It's not a secret their support was based on the hope that she would look kindly towards the people that are incarcerated," said Rabbi Ronnie Greenwald, a prominent Orthodox leader who lives in nearby Monsey. ``They really went out and helped her. It was an honest attempt to get votes and get support for Hillary Clinton."
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I would love to hear a notable conservative rabbi ask someone to do that.
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