Newark, NJ – The rabbi’s son and admitted con man who became the central figure in New Jersey’s largest federal corruption sting is out of prison.
Subscribe to our Daily Roundup Email
Solomon Dwek was released from a federal prison in Maryland this week. He was placed into home confinement after serving less than 30 months of a six-year sentence.
U.S Prisons Bureau spokesman Ed Ross tells NJ.com (http://bit.ly/1BECGHe ) Dwek is under supervision. He will be able to go to work, visit doctors and attend some activities with his family, which includes six children.
The 42-year-old son of a prominent rabbi began cooperating with the FBI as part of a plea agreement after he was accused of running a real estate Ponzi scheme.
He secretly recorded meetings in which he sought to launder money from bankruptcy proceedings through Jewish charitable organizations and in which he posed as a corrupt real estate developer seeking influence with public officials.
The sting, which investigators called “Operation Bid Rig” led to the arrests of 46 political, business and religious leaders.
The arrests were unforgettable, even in New Jersey — a place with a reputation for political corruption. Elderly rabbis in long black coats, municipal employees in sweat suits and assorted bleary-eyed elected officials paraded in handcuffs off a fleet of buses for processing at FBI headquarters.
Dwek testified in several trials over the charges.
Ultimately, 34 people pleaded guilty, four were convicted, two were acquitted and one died before trial.
It has not been a smooth ride for Dwek. In 2011, a judge calling him “an extremely cunning liar” revoked Dwek’s bail and sent him to prison as he awaited sentencing after he failed to return a rental car and then lied about the incident to his FBI handlers.
It’s hard for me to criticize the guy – he did what he had to do, to save his own skin – but I hope he finds a way to live with himself, after the hell he put other people through. Certainly he’ll have to get mechila from the people who’s lives he ruined. How do you ‘make it up’ to someone like that?
Hope they dont let him be part of klal yisroel and will b embarrased to walk the streets in all yidisha neighborhoods for the pain he put trough other people and whole families and whole communities on his wrong doing
The crimes that people committed got them put in jail, not Dwek. He’s not an admirable guy, but he was raised in our frum community which all too often looks the other way when it comes to committing fraud and even encourages fraud in many instances. To the extent that he ended up being the shliach of Hashem to route out fraud amongst yidden, good for him. Fraud is not just about theft. It creates a twisted way of thinking that is far from the derech of yashrus and permeates many other areas of our lives.
Money gets certain people very far and privileges others don’t get.
People flap their lips and have allot to say when someone is like Dwek, how many people honor or respect someone who is not like him? People all over still find something to trash that person with. In other words, there is no gain in not being a Dwek, and allot to gain doing what he did.
This Dwek is a rusha took innocent people that never committed a crime and convinced them to do fraud, yes most of them were crooks but some of them where clean In no time he will either be back in prison or talk against more people.
#1 If people’s lives were ruined it was because they were dishonest and willing to commit crimes for cash. If you don’t want to do the time, don’t do the crime.
People flap their lips and have allot to say when someone is like Dwek, how many people honor or respect someone who is not like him? People all over still find something to trash that person with. In other words, there is no gain in not being a Dwek, and allot to gain doing what he did.