A Manhattan judge Tuesday sentenced an elderly crony of Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver’s close pal William Rapfogel to four months in jail for helping steal $9 million from the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty.
Last month Herbert Friedman, 80, once the chief financial officer of the charity known as the Met Council, copped to grand larceny and conspiracy as part of a plea deal.
“Mr Friedman has accepted responsibility for his wrongdoing and regrets his wrongdoing,” said his defense lawyer Sharon Feldman before Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Michael Obus.
He paid full restitution of $775,000, significantly more than the approximately $200,000 he pocketed in the scheme, in accordance with his agreement with the New York State Attorney General’s Office, prosecutors said.
Obus allowed Friedman to delay the execution of his four-month sentence until Wednesday.
Over the last two decades, Friedman and his codefendants, Rapfogel, the ringleader of the kickback scheme, David Cohen and Joseph Ross conspired to inflate the charity’s insurance bills, skim the excess off the top and split it among them, prosecutors said.
Rapfogel, whose wife was a longtime top aide to the powerful Assembly speaker, pleaded guilty last April to helping fleece the charity he once headed out of $9 million. He has to pay $3 million in restitution and faces a maximum of 10 years behind bars when he’s sentenced on July 16.
The Met Council received millions in taxpayer funding.
“Herb Friedman abused his position of trust to help steal millions of dollars from a taxpayer-funded charitable organization – one dedicated to serving some of New York City’s poorest and most vulnerable residents,” said Attorney General Eric Schneiderman in a statement.
“As this case has shown as much as any other, those who rip off taxpayers and charitable organizations will be prosecuted and punished.”