Rabbi Eliyahu Ben Haim, a prominent New Jersey spiritual leader, was sentenced to five years in prison for money laundering.
Ben Haim, 60, was sentenced Jan. 4 in U.S. District Court in Trenton, N.J., for laundering at least $1.5 million through a number of religious charities from October 2006 to July 2009. He pleaded guilty in June 2010.
The rabbi was among 45 people, including other religious leaders and politicians, arrested in a government sting operation in 2009 with the cooperation of Solomon Dwek, a developer involved in a $50 million bank fraud.
At his sentencing, Ben Haim pleaded for leniency.
“My emotion and desire to help someone overtook my better judgment,” said Ben Haim, the rabbi at Congregation Ohel Yaacob in Deal, a wealthy southern New Jersey town with a large Syrian Jewish community.
The five-year sentence was the longest term ever imposed in a federal corruption sting. — jta