The powerful jail-chaplain rabbi under investigation for throwing a bar-mitzvah bash for an inmate’s son at the city’s downtown lockup resigned from his post yesterday.
Rabbi Leib Glanz was already suspended for organizing the kosher, catered affair at the Tombs. He also is being probed for allowing a chosen few Jewish inmates to live like privileged Goodfellas.
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The scandal, which exposed a shocking breach of security rules and subculture of preferential treatment for certain prisoners, has become a black eye for Mayor Bloomberg’s administration. It has also raised questions as to why Glanz was appointed to his post in 2000 under then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani without legally mandated vetting by the Chaplaincy Committee.
After The Post broke the story Thursday, Bloomberg fumed, “Clearly, this is not something that should have taken place.”
He then announced the city Department of Investigation was probing the matter.
In addition, the Manhattan DA’s Office has now launched a probe into possible criminal conduct involving the bar mitzvah, focusing on whether Department of Correction officials may have received money, The New York Times reported.
Glanz’s resignation came a day after the head of security for the jails, Peter Curcio, quit over his role in the mess — namely, that he did not stop the rabbi from arranging the Dec. 30 bar mitzvah reception for an inmate’s son in the jail, formally called the Manhattan Detention Complex.
“Yes, I resigned. I decided it was best for everybody,” said a distraught Glanz at his home in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. He also blasted the Post’s exclusive coverage as “uncalled for, totally unjust, pure lies.”
Glanz had been questioned the day before by DOI officials.
Curcio yesterday was quick to point the finger at his ex-colleague, head chaplain Imam Umar Abdul-Jalil.
“I regret the embarrassment that this event has caused the City of New York. As a three-star bureau chief, I understand that I’m ultimately responsible for everything,” said Curcio. “However, in this particular instance, I did not approve the bar mitzvah — it was approved by Umar.”
Abdul-Jalil, 59, declined to comment.
The imam was suspended for two weeks in 2006 after The Post revealed that he had given an inflammatory speech at Muslim events where he said “the greatest terrorists in the world occupy the White House,” and referred to “Zionists of the media.”
Curcio, 45, said he resigned, taking early retirement, primarily to spend more time with his family — not just because of the bar-mitzvah brouhaha.
Glanz was suspended for two weeks last Wednesday for organizing the bar mitzvah, at which about 60 non-inmate guests enjoyed a catered feast on china and silverware brought into the jail.
The bar-mitzvah boy was the son of Tombs inmate Tuvia Stern, a fraudster who spent nearly two decades abroad as a fugitive. The soiree was followed four months later by a jailhouse engagement party for Stern’s daughter.
Since then, former Tombs inmates and correction officers have described to The Post how Glanz coddled Jewish inmates at the jail, regularly bringing them chicken, salmon and roast beef and allowing them to use his office to make calls to girlfriends and bookies.
Additional reporting by Douglas Montero