BTW, the Rubashkins are related to NYC Rabbi Balkany who ripped off the US govt (that's us---taxpayers) of millions of dollars---and never served a day in jail. Balkany got tax dollars to build a (cough) "secular" daycare center on his synagogue----execpt that no one but Orthodox were admitted (if at all). It was one big scam. More below.
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Lieberman Meets Brooklyn Fund-raiser
January 20, 2006 THE FORWARD, By E.J. KESSLER
Senator Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn) met January 2006 with some Orthodox leaders at the home of Milton Balkany, a rabbi whose legal troubles led President Bush's campaign and a New York mayoral candidate to return contributions linked to him. A well-connected political fund-raiser once dubbed the "Brooklyn Bundler" by the good-government watchdog group Common Cause, Balkany has been at the center of controversies dating back some years, which have led to various accusations but no criminal convictions.
In August 2003, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York charged Rabbi Balkany, president and director of the Bais Yaakov School in the Boro Park section of Brooklyn, with theft of government property, false claims, and wire fraud and obstruction of justice for allegedly misappropriating a $700,000 grant from the Department of Housing and Urban Development. The charges prompted President Bush's campaign to return $4,000 that Balkany, a self-described Republican, had raised for the 2004 re-election run, the Forward reported in 2003. In March 2004, the charges were dropped when prosecutors came to a deferred prosecution agreement with Balkany that allowed him to return the money.
Bush is not the only politician to have returned campaign funds linked to Balkany. After Balkany's agreement with the government, Rep. Anthony Weiner, a New York congressman who ran for New York City mayor in 2005, returned contributions from relatives of Balkany when the government's original charges were brought to his attention, the New York Post reported in January 2005. Federal records show that Balkany gave Lieberman a $2,000 contribution in May 2003 and a $500 contribution in March 1999. The recent meeting at Balkany's home was first reported in the January 11 weekly edition of Hamodia, an Orthodox newspaper published in Brooklyn.
The recent meeting comes as Lieberman, a Democrat, is seeking re-election in Connecticut. The Lieberman campaign told the Forward that the event was arranged by the senator's fund-raiser, Fran Katz Watson. Lieberman's senatorial office confirmed the fund-raiser's involvement, but insisted that the gathering was not a fund-raising event.
"Senator Lieberman is an observant Jew, and there is support for him in the Orthodox community," Lieberman's spokeswoman, Casey Aden Wansbury, wrote in an e-mail. "This was not a fund-raiser, but an outreach event with this community of supporters and potential supporters." The national president of the Zionist Organization of America, Morton Klein, who attended the gathering, confirmed the assertion.
"This was not a fund-raiser," Klein said. "It was a friendly get-together. Nobody was writing checks. We talked about issues surrounding the Arab war against Israel and [confessed spy Jonathan] Pollard. It was eight people around [Balkany's] dinner table. We davened. Joe Lieberman led Mincha and Ma'ariv. He said Kaddish for his mother." Others present included the executive vice-president of National Council of Young Israel, Rabbi Pesach Lerner. He is a Pollard champion and, like Klein, an opponent of Israel's withdrawal from Gaza last summer. Lerner said he was "not at liberty to talk about" what was discussed at the meeting.
Balkany, interviewed by telephone, said that press reports of his legal woes were nothing more than "smearing." "There never was an indictment," he said about the 2003 charges. He added: "The government raised something. They walked away with egg on their faces. They made an apology." "I have dedicated my life to Jewish education and the Jewish community," he said.
Balkany's legal troubles have been reported on in various newspapers, including The New York Times, The Daily News, the New York Post and the Village Voice. In 2004, prosecutors released a statement from Balkany in which he acknowledged violating an "understanding" with the government. "Contrary to my understanding with HUD, I authorized the use of the grant to pay for general administrative and operational expenses of both Bais Yaakov and the Children's Center of Brooklyn, even though I knew that the specific terms of the grant did not permit me to use the funds in this manner," the rabbi said in the statement.
Balkany came to public attention during the administration of New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, after The Daily News reported that he had helped get day-care vouchers for parents by acting as a middle man, giving their names to city officials. The paper reported in January 2000 that more than half the city's 12,000 vouchers had gone to Orthodox Jewish families, prompting a probe. The practice drew criticism, but the probe found no illegality.
SOURCE http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:E3SI_Obn6h8J:www.forward.com/main/article.php%3Fref%3Dkessler200601181151
Fine group of people ;-)
Lieberman and Weiner are both POS.