Move over, Goodfellas.
The lower Manhattan lockup known as the Tombs was like a “private club” for a group of Orthodox Jewish jailbirds, whose politically connected prison-chaplain rabbi regularly treated them to feasts of roast beef, salmon and chicken with all the trimmings, The Post has learned.
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Rabbi Leib Glanz — the city jail chaplain suspended Wednesday for organizing a 60-guest bar mitzvah in the jail for an inmate’s son — also ensured that those “chosen few” inmates awaited trial there instead of at the more dangerous Rikers Island, according to a bombshell correction officers’ memo, a copy of which was provided to The Post.
“The outlandish and outrageous things that the rabbi is allowed to do in the facility have gotten beyond words and belief,” the memo says. “When it comes to Rabbi Glanz, it would [seem] that the Jewish inmates are not in jail but in a private club reserved just for them.”
“The inmates are untouchable,” the memo added. “When it comes to the Jewish inmates, all rules are put aside.”
The memo also claims that Glanz:
* Twice a week unloaded an SUV filled with food for the Jewish inmates, including “sodas, salmon, roast chicken, roast beef, mash potatoes, vegetables, cakes, condiments.” The scene was reminiscent of Martin Scorsese’s “Goodfellas,” where imprisoned mobsters have filet mignon and lobster brought into their cells.
The food was taken to Glanz’s office, where the inmates “proceeded to conduct their services by themselves” before chowing down.
When Tombs officers complained, they were told the normal jail food was “not kosher and the rabbi has ‘juice’ ” with Correction Department brass.
* Hosted an annual summer picnic for jail officers, administrators “and all the top brass, and only the Jewish inmates are allowed to cook and serve the food, and then they are allowed to sit at the table and eat like invited guests.” When the picnic is over, “other inmate workers . . . come and clean up the place, which usually consist of the black or Hispanic inmates.”
* Doled out Christmas presents to correction officers and other jail employees, a practice cited by supervisors in the rabbi’s defense whenever staffers “complained about anything the rabbi is doing.”
An anonymous letter obtained by The Post, which was sent to Mayor Bloomberg’s office and Correction officials last month, details how Glanz “has made it his practice of ensuring that all Orthodox Jewish inmates incarcerated are housed at” the Tombs, where they are allowed to meet for non-religious purposes. Bloomberg did not see the letter, which was soon after referred to the city Department of Investigation, according the mayor’s spokesman.
“That is not done for any other religion or group — Muslims, Catholics, Protestants, etc.,” that letter said.
The Post yesterday revealed that Glanz was suspended for two weeks, and four other top Correction officials lost two weeks of vacation, for allowing the bar mitzvah for the son of fraudster Tuvia Stern. It took place Dec. 30 at the Tombs in shocking contravention of security concerns.
The non-inmate guests partied in the jail’s visitors room for nearly six hours, dining on catered food, used china and silverware brought in from outside, and listened to Orthodox singer Yaakov Shwekey as up to eight correction officers worked overtime monitoring the shindig.
Warden George Okada, who had been out of work sick, was ordered to go to the Tombs to watch the soiree, sources said.
Four months later, days before Stern was shipped upstate to begin a prison sentence, he was allowed to host an engagement party for his daughter, Breindy, at the jail, for about 10 non-inmate guests.
“I didn’t quite know what to say when I saw the article,” a clearly annoyed Bloomberg said about The Post’s revelations yesterday. “Clearly, this is not something that should have taken place. I don’t care how you sugarcoat or define it. It’s sort of ‘through the looking glass.’ ”
Bloomberg revealed that DOI is now probing the case.
Glanz will not be allowed to work at the Tombs after his suspension, sources said. And all Jewish inmates were transferred from the Tombs on Wednesday.
The other sanctioned officials include Chief Peter Curcio, the head of security who overruled the objections of the Tombs’ deputy warden to allow the bar mitzvah.
“Curcio approved everything,” a source said. “How can you, as security chief, do something like this?”
“The officers and the staff are furious and embarrassed,” said the source, who also fumed that Correction Commissioner Martin Horn gave Curcio and the others only “a slap on the wrist.”
The agency’s chief of department, Carolyn Thomas, wanted Correction officials’ “heads” over the matter, and, in particular, demanded that Glanz be fired, the source said.
She wanted to suspend or demote the others — who include Curcio, Okada, Chief Frank Squillante and the head chaplain, Imam Umar Abdul-Jalil.