Does a kosher butcher’s fraud mandate a life sentence?

Yes, we Jews unfortunately have our criminals. Yes, we Orthodox Jews unfortunately have our felons. We’re human, too.

At middle age I have come to accept my limitations. Although I like to have an opinion on almost everything, I am conscious of the fact that I am not a legal scholar and do not understand all the complexities of the criminal case against Sholom Rubashkin, former CEO of America’s largest kosher meat plant, Agriprocessors of Postville, Iowa.

But I am not a stupid man either. And I and a heck of a lot of other fairly intelligent and educated people are scratching our heads as to why government prosecutors are requesting that Rubashkin, who has 10 children, including an autistic son, and a reputation for enormous philanthropy, be given a life sentence in prison.

Life behind bars – the very words are ominous. Isn’t that reserved for society’s most heinous offenders? A life sentence has one conjuring images of rapists and murderers, international drug cartel kingpins and white-collar criminals guilty of gargantuan fraud, like Bernard Madoff.

What did Rubashkin do? After an INS raid on the plant that found hundreds of illegal immigrants, the company was pushed to the brink of bankruptcy and Rubashkin, who had already been arrested for employing illegals, was subsequently found guilty of defrauding a bank and producing false invoices to keep the business going. There is no insinuation that he did any of this for personal profit or gain. Unlike Madoff, he had no Hamptons estate, no fancy yacht and no Manhattan penthouse. By all accounts he and his family lived in incredibly modest circumstances.

Obviously, the Rubashkin story has been an enormous embarrassment to the American Jewish community in general and Orthodoxy in particular. The largest kosher meat plant in the country employing hundreds of illegal immigrants? Engaging in bank fraud to remain a going concern? Falsifying invoices and misleading lenders? These are serious charges that go against both terrestrial and celestial law and constitute actions that neither man nor God can condone. The expected flight of Jewish leaders and spokespeople from Rubashkin’s side ensued, whatever the injustice of his proposed sentence. We Jews are accustomed to run from scandal like the plague.

Yes, we Jews unfortunately have our criminals. Yes, we Orthodox Jews unfortunately have our felons. We’re human, too. We have people guilty of serious wrongdoing. And we too must confess our sins, repent of our actions, are punished for our crimes and teach our children to always do better and never excuse our behavior.

Our community needs to know that no matter how important you believe it is for other Jews to eat kosher, you cannot purchase that mitzva at any price. You cannot be a good Jew if you are not an honest person. A religious obligation that comes through theft – even when the intention is to simply keep a business open so you can eventually pay off your loans – subverts all principles of religious morality.

Rubashkin is no hero. Whatever the nobility of his intentions, he is a poor example to religious youth. He has been found guilty of a crime and he must do the time.

But he is no monster either. Unlike Wall Street bankers, he did not bet the farm and other people’s deposits to buy himself a Ferrari. Unlike AIG executives, he did not cost the government billions in bailouts and then get a bonus. And while I, of course, understand that criminal conduct is infinitely more serious, so is prosecutorial overzealousness that borders on fanaticism.

The time that Rubashkin serves must be fair and just. This is America. Just as there is no room for toleration of criminal conduct, there is also no room for a lynch mob mentality. I realize I am not a lawyer. But I have enough sense to understand that a punishment of a few years in prison sets an unassailable example that criminal conduct is utterly inexcusable. Anything more than that for a crime of this nature gives the false impression that the American justice system is prejudicial and untrustworthy.

As for the outcry from the hassidic community that Rubashkin is being treated unfairly and that his yarmulke and beard make for a prosecutorial bull’s-eye, I love America too much to believe any of it. This is the fairest, most decent country on Earth. But I do believe it possible that when an overtly religious person perpetrates a crime – especially one that involves companies catering to religious needs – there is a feeling on the part of many that the hypocrisy mandates an even harsher sentence.

This is not in any way analogous to other ugly religious stories dominating the news like pedophile priests. There is no suggestion that Rubashkin’s crimes be covered up. Less so is there any insinuation that Rubashkin be moved to another state where he can start up a new kosher meat plant. Rubashkin’s trustworthiness in the American Jewish community is finished.

But there is an insistence that he be treated like a human being. That it be taken into consideration that he has no prior offenses and that his company provided kosher meat to hundreds of thousands of people at affordable prices so that more Jews could observe their faith. That he and his family are legendary in the hassidic community for their charitable giving, their hospitality and their communal involvement. That Rubashkin himself devoted a substantial portion of his profits to funding a soup kitchen and supporting organizations like Kollel Chabad that feed the hungry and the poor. To disregard all these considerations when it comes to sentencing is to disregard the universal belief that the good we do is not cancelled out by our horrendous mistakes.

I know my own limitations. Perhaps Rubashkin’s prosecutors ought to know theirs.

I’m pretty thick skinned. If I thought your post was abusive I would have reported it to the mods; I didn’t do that.

Your post seems to say that Eastern European Jews should be held to a different standard and suspected of corruption or contempt for society and its laws. I disagree; I don’t like the soft bigotry of low expectations, regardless of who “benefits”. If a Jew or a gentile, religious or non-religious, rabbi or priest (or imam) violates the law he deserves to be prosecuted and, if convicted, should get a sentence that is in line with precedents absent a compelling reason to be either more or less lenient with him.

One of the benefits of Free Republic is that people can write what’s on their mind and if someone disagrees they can take issue with it. I didn’t take your comment personally and I hope that I didn’t respond personally.

The court agreed to bifurcate the trial into two parts, holding a separate trial for the charges involving hiring (and conspiring to hire) illegal aliens. The basis for this separation was the prejudice against Rubashkin on the non-illegals charges that would have flowed from the illegals charges.

Yet the government tried Rubashkin on the illegals charges during the first trial anyway, and I have no doubt that the bias that flowed from those charges influenced the jury as it decided on the other charges. The way that the government reintroduced the illegals charges was to charge him with bank fraud for delivering compliance certificates to the bank in connection with his loan, certifying that the company was not in violation of any laws. Then they introduced evidence that the company was in violation of the laws barring hiring of illegal aliens. As a result, he was found guilt, not of hiring illegal aliens, but of committing bank fraud.

Do you think that a lifetime sentence is standard or appropriate for hiring 300+ illegals? It is not. Here are some other cases:

(a) Swift & Co. - Although Swift was a major employer of illegal workers in six states and 1,297 illegal employees were found on those premises in the December 2006 raids, neither the company nor any of its officials were criminally charged. In Iowa, for example, one United Food and Commercial Workers (”UFCW”) official at Swift’s Marshalltown, Iowa, plant was charged in an Iowa federal court with harboring illegal immigrants and was sentenced to one year and one day in prison and a $2000 fine after being found guilty by a jury. Another Swift employee who had pleaded guilty was sentenced to probation.

(b) Michael Bianco, Inc. (”MBI”) - A manufacturer of leather goods and handbags in New Bedford, Mass. was raided by ICE on March 6, 2007, after an undercover operation from which it was learned that Francesco Insolia, the owner, intentionally sought out illegal immigrants and exploited them with punitive fines and terrible working conditions. Approximately 326 illegal workers were detained in the raid. Insolia was sentenced in January 2009 to one year and one day in prison and fined $30,000. The company was fined $1.51 million and ordered to pay $460,000 in restitution.

(c) Action Rags USA - A Houston, Texas clothing and rag exporter company was raided by ICE on June 25, 2008 - little more than a month after the Agri raid. Approximately 85% of the business’ workforce consisted of illegal Mexican immigrants, and approximately 150 immigrants were arrested. The owner, Mubarik Kahlon, and two managers were indicted on immigration charges in July 2008. A jury trial was set for June 15, 2009, but on June 10, Kahlon and one manager pleaded guilty. Kahlon was sentenced to two years’ probation and a $6,000 fine.

(d) Miyako Sushi and Panda China Buffets - ICE raided these restaurants in Ocean City, Maryland in June 2007, on evidence that illegal workers were hired as below-minimum-wage employees (paid in cash) in the restaurants and were provided living accommodations in condominiums owned by the restaurant owners, Bo Hao Zhu and Siu Ping Cheng. The owners pleaded guilty to immigration-law violations and were sentenced on September 12, 2008, to 18 months’ probation. Their partnership was ordered to pay a $50,000 fine.

(e) Rosenbaum-Cunningham International, Inc. (”RCI”) - On February 22, 2007, ICE raided 63 locations in 17 states of a national janitorial service that provided cleaning crews for restaurants. Almost all RCI janitorial employees were illegal immigrants who had no documentation whatever, and they were paid in cash. The owners, Richard M. Rosenbaum, Edward Scott Cunningham, and Christina A. Flocken were charged not only with immigration-law violations, but also with defrauding the United States of more than $18 million in federal employment taxes. On March 4, 2008, Rosenbaum was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment, Cunningham to 51 months, and Flocken to 30 months.

The cases described above are typical. No case following an ICE raid has even come remotely close to the draconian threats and punishments imposed on Rubashkin.

Again, I am not questioning Rubashkin’s guilt. I am arguing that the prosecutors embarked on a tortuous path to rack up tens of charges arising from the same events, violated their agreement and now are seeking a sentence — jail for the rest of his life — that is far beyond the bounds of propriety and morality.

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