What Do 3 Mayors, 5 Rabbis and an Alleged Organ Seller Have in Common?

Bribe-taking by public officials. Money laundering through charities. Human organ trafficking.

These are the charges that fill 32 complaints levied against a group of 44 individuals rounded up today by FBI agents in a sweeping probe that reportedly ranged from the Jersey Shore to Brooklyn and even reached into the state house in Trenton. The arrest sheet includes three New Jersey mayors, Jersey City's deputy mayor, two state assemblymen, numerous other public officials and five rabbis from New York and New Jersey.

This is how it went down: A "cooperating witness" assisted in a money-laundering investigation that uncovered a disturbingly wide net of public corruption. It didn't say in the Department of Justice's statement how the organ-selling came into it.

It was a single investigation that branched into three, with help from an unidentified "cooperating witness" who sources told the Star-Ledger is Solomon Dwek, the son of Rabbi Isaac Dwek, a leader in the Sephardic Jewish community and the head of the Synagogue of Deal.

Solomon Dwek was charged two years ago with trying to defraud a bank of more than $50 million, according to the Star-Ledger's report. That case is still pending. Does a pending federal case and extensive religious and political connections mean he is the cooperating witness? Not necessarily, but: Forbes has already published an account of how "the cooperating witness" began bribing Hoboken Mayor Peter Cammarano III.

But let's deal with that organ trafficking first. It was a kidney, and allegedly one of many trafficked by a single man over the past decade. His name is Levy Izhak Rosenbaum, and he lives in Brooklyn. Rosenbaum is charged with conspiring to broker the sale of a human kidney for a transplant, at a cost of $160,000 to the transplant recipient. He allegedly told investigators he had been brokering the sale of kidneys for 10 years.

Which has to make you wonder: why just kidneys? Most likely because humans only need one, and selling a kidney is apparently quite easy in some places.

Now public corruption.

The DOJ's investigation veered onto its public corruption track in July 2007. Some of the alleged bribe-takers saw their houses of cards collapsed by the "cooperating witness" from the original money-laundering investigation who posed as a developer and used cash to secure both a smooth ride for his projects and additional contracts. Other bribe-taking "was connected to fund raising efforts in heavily contested mayoral and city council campaigns in Jersey City and Hoboken, and the bribes were often parceled out to straw donors, who then wrote checks in their names or businesses to the campaigns in amounts that complied with legal limits on individual donations," according to the complaints.

“It seemed that everyone wanted a piece of the action," said Ralph J. Marra, Jr., acting U.S. attorney.

Among those charged in the public corruption investigation are:

• Peter Cammarano III, the newly elected mayor of Hoboken and an attorney, charged with accepting $25,000 in cash bribes, including $10,000 last Thursday, from an undercover cooperating witness.
• L. Harvey Smith, a New Jersey Assemblyman and recent mayoral candidate in Jersey City, charged along with an aide of taking $15,000 in bribes to help get approvals from high-level state agency officials for building projects.
• Daniel Van Pelt, a New Jersey Assemblyman, charged with accepting a $10,000 bribe.
• Dennis Elwell, mayor of Secaucus, charged with taking a $10,000 cash bribe.
• Anthony Suarez, mayor of Ridgefield and an attorney, charged with agreeing to accept a $10,000 corrupt cash payment for his legal defense fund.
• Louis Manzo, the recent unsuccessful challenger in the Jersey City mayoral election and former state assemblyman, and his brother and political advisor Robert Manzo, both with taking $27,500 in corrupt cash payments for use in Louis Manzo’s campaign.
• Leona Beldini, Jersey City's deputy mayor and a campaign treasurer, charged with taking $20,000 in conduit campaign contributions and other self-dealing in her official capacity.

“The list of names and titles of those arrested today sounds like a roster for a community leaders meeting," Weysan Dun, special agent in charge of the FBI in Newark, said in the DOJ's statement.

Also: Agents raided the home of Joseph V. Doria Jr., commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs, who also is the former mayor of Bayonne, N.J., an official confirmed to the New York Times. He resigned late this afternoon.

It all began with the money-laundering investigation, of course.

From the DOJ statement:

"Law enforcement personnel, with the assistance of a cooperating witness, first infiltrated a pre-existing money laundering network that operated internationally between Brooklyn, Deal, N.J. and Israel and laundered at least tens of millions of dollars through charitable, non-profit entities controlled by rabbis in New York and New Jersey [emphasis is mine]."

The cooperating witness told targets of the money laundering investigation that he was involved in illegal businesses and bank frauds. He also openly discussed with targets that he was in bankruptcy and was attempting to conceal cash and assets, and told them he wanted to launder criminal proceeds in increments ranging from tens of thousands of dollars to $150,000 or more at a time, often at the rate of several transactions per week. According to the criminal Complaints, the money laundering operations run by the rabbis laundered a total of approximately $3 million for the cooperating witness alone between about June 2007 and July 2009."

The rabbis charged in this investigation are:

• Eliahu Ben Haim, of Long Branch, N.J., the principal rabbi of a synagogue in Deal, N.J., charged with money laundering of proceeds derived from criminal activity.
• Saul Kassin, of Brooklyn, N.Y., the chief rabbi of a synagogue in Brooklyn, New York, charged with money laundering of proceeds derived from criminal activity.
• Edmund Nahum, of Deal, N.J., the principal rabbi of a synagogue in Deal, charged with money laundering of proceeds derived from criminal activity.
• Mordchai Fish, of Brooklyn, N.Y., a rabbi at a synagogue in Brooklyn, charged with money laundering of proceeds derived from criminal activity. His brother, also a rabbi, was charged as well.

The complete list of arrestees and charges can be viewed here, as well as in our related NYSSCPA E-zine story.