FAIRFAX AREA : Rabbi Gets 5 Years in Money-Laundering Scheme
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A Los Angeles rabbi who agreed to launder drug money through a “holy network” of charities and nonprofit organizations was sentenced Monday to five years in federal prison.
Abraham Low, 44, rabbi at the ultra-Orthodox Mogen Abraham synagogue in the Fairfax area, was convicted April 7 of conspiring to commit money laundering.
U.S. District Judge Robert Takasugi waived payment of any fines Low faced because he has no money to pay them, and he ordered the rabbi to surrender to authorities Nov. 21.
The judge denied a defense request to send Low to a halfway house so he would not be deprived of his religious requirements, which include specially prepared food and at least nine other men with whom to pray.
Takasugi said the Bureau of Prisons, in a letter to the court, pledged to abide by Low’s religious requests, providing food supervised and certified by the Central Rabbinical Congress and sending him to a prison where there are other Jewish inmates.
Low said he was not “asking for freedom,” adding: “I cannot and will not change my diet.”
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