See last years NY Times Villiage Voice According to the Queens District Attorney's office, four men in Far
Rockaway, including a rabbi, have been charged with stealing $12.4
million intended for Jewish special needs toddlers. The men allegedly
used that money for all sorts of other things instead, including home
repairs on one man's residence, redesigning another man's home from the
bottom up, and helping pay for catering for a third man's daughter's
wedding and his son's Bar Mitzvah.
According to an audit conducted by the state last year, exactly zero
dollars are believed to have gone to the special needs babies, who were
supposed to receive specialized one-on-one instruction. Yep. This is a
bad one.
The indicted men are Ira Kurman, 52, Rabbi Samuel Hiller, 56, Roy
Hoffmann, 50, of 1 Hazel Place and Daniel Laniado, 41. Kurman and Hiller
live in Queens, Hoffmann in Long Island and Laniado in Brooklyn. All
four men, like their victims, are Orthodox, and the scandal quickly
spread through the haredi community last year after a state audit
revealed that Island Child Development Center, a day care center for
special needs kids which Kurman was the director of, had received millions in taxpayer funding for the instruction of 200 special needs children, aged 3 to 5.[....]
The article is from the Village Voice?
ReplyDeleteIf this is true, why were they not aware that there are audits and you can't get away with such things? Obviously, they relied on the fact that when they got caught they would prove their insanity because they did not worry about the audit and would thus go free and dig up the money eventually and spend it. Actually, they probably decided to eventually get government programs for crazy people like them, and...
ReplyDeleteIs this piece also supported by Rabbi Feinstein etc?
DeleteAre you implying that Rabbi Feinstein z"l was incapable of understanding irony, sarcasm, parody, etc? If yes, what is your basis? Rabbi Eidensohn would sometimes spend hours at a time with Reb Moshe. I take it they spoke in Yiddish. My familiarity with Yiddish is that it is a language rich in the use of rhetoric.
Delete(Sheesh, what is it with some of the people who populate this blog....)
This is very upsetting. Samuel hiller is one of the leaders of the far rockaway community. There is nobody trustworthy anymore.
ReplyDeleteIf this is true, why didn't they escape to Israel or some other country when the audit started?
ReplyDeleteI'll bet they won't touch meat that isn't uber-glatt mehadrin and wear only double-checked shatnez free suits though.
ReplyDeleteIf you only knew the way hiller treats people in far rockaway. You have to meet his standards to get into his school.
Deletein getting sweet deals.
ReplyDeleteTo all future haredi criminals, beware you cannot hide behind a beard, a black hat, a white shirt, a black suit, a black coat, go to shul, send your sons to yeshiva, send your daughters to sem, and be the ones to look down on decent secular jews, decent non jews etc. For the law will always catch up with you! By the sound of it, this case is far too big for the rabbi's to protect these abusers, bet they tried though!!!!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteMaybe, but if you do all those things then the frum community will rally behind you, hold "pidyon shevuim" rallies, attack those who date insinuate that those nasssssty goyim might be onto something....
DeleteAgain, it is the Internet that is the problem. Let's invite all the ra-bonim to citifield and lecture them about chilul hashem berabim, gneivo, molestation, ORA bullying and thuggery, Epstein & Wolmark beatings, Get meusses, mamzerim factories, FREE FREE FOR ALL hafkoes with hefker beis din hefker, Torah The rapistry, Sholom Bayis Rapistry, Beneshek incestry, Enabler revictimizers, Zimbabwe pedophiles, Pleitim from UK, farbrente Chassidishe korben pesach bagruten grillers... We must make a Part II Asifa, since even a mega stadium cannot contain this dynamic list. On second thought, these Queens foursome committed no crime.
ReplyDelete1) They declared these funds "FREE", with bracha bshem umalchus.
2) They were mafkia the funds lemafrea with Hefker beis din hefker.
3) Shailos chochom behatores kapores.
4) Bitul be'elef alfei alofim.
5) Heter meah rabonim bekuf nin taymim. veday!
Avinu shebashomayim, where does this all end???
Hold on over here. While what they are accused of doing is definitely very wrong, the article does NOT explain the true story.
ReplyDeleteThe money was used to run a school, from beginning to end. Not for houses, wedding expenses or remodeling.
They got a salary (not a high one!), and yes, with their paltry salary, they did pay for their childs wedding and for living expenses. That came directly from the school - which would be legal, if the school was paying them with legal funds.
The article is an unfair hit-job.
The d a does not prosecute people for earning a salary.
DeleteDr. Sid, get your head out of the sand. There were details released last year about all kinds of jewelry for the extended Hiller family being paid for by these stolen monies. And AOL's online "5 Towns Patch" newspaper had from the Nassau PD police blotter that now that the flow of easy stolen money has been turned off by the State, one of Hiller's sons was recently arrested TWICE for shoplifting at department stores on Rockaway Turnpike & Sunrise Highway.
DeleteDr Sid, paltry salary? not bad 12.4 million dollars between four people
DeleteLeah,
DeleteThe 12.4 million was used to run the SCHOOL over several years.
They are accused of running the school with illegal money.
ostrich,
Deletekindly submerge from the sand, wipe yourself off, get used to the daylight and swallow.
Good!
The "all kinds of jewelry for extended family" was regular wedding gifts.
Again, they are accused of illegally rerouting money to run their school, over many years. The implication by the village voice that they were using the money to live some sort of high life, the way YU's business school president did, is false and just as wrong.
Context, context, context.
Now you may retreat back into the sand.
Years ago at the wedding of a child my mechuton a prominent Rebbe asked me, "How did you get such good children." I said, "We don't touch that money." He liked that. When you start with various monies, actually, I forgot what I wanted to say...
ReplyDeleteYes, we know it is hard for you to write up a consistent thought. Seen it over and over in your posts and comments.
DeletePatience. Why not have some (patience)? Rabbi Eidensohn is saying, I think, that while there is necessity to discuss wrongdoing on this blog, yet there are limitations to what can be publicly discussed. There has to be a a balance between the obligation to address wrongdoing and the requirement not to give our enemies ammunition to use against us.
DeleteRabbi Eidensohn, with a light touch, is alluding to a serious issue of people who justify stealing to support a false way of keeping the Torah. 'Nuff said.
Yes, but if you do all those things then the frum community will rally around you, hold "pidyon shevuyim" rallies, attack any who insinuate that those nassssty goyim might be onto something...
ReplyDelete"How did you get such good children"
ReplyDelete"We don't touch that ..."
So how is the Mechutan a "prominent Rebbe"?
They don't fit into this 'no touch" scene.
Tell me, on what do you base your judgment that "they don't fit into the...scene." I know this prominent rebbe and others and they fit into it plenty. I am a mechuton with the major rebbesheh and Rosh Yeshiva families in Israel. They all "fit" plenty into understanding life.
ReplyDeleteDr. Sid: My only comment on this article would be that the victims of this crime were not all orthodox; every single disabled child in the state of NY suffered as a direct result of these rabbis' impropriety these men have shamed all of the children of israel- if not the entirety of humanity- god have mercy on us all.
ReplyDelete