Tuesday, June 25, 2013
Fund-Raiser for Thompson Has History of Swindling
One of the most prolific fund-raisers for the mayoral campaign of William C. Thompson Jr. is an admitted swindler who once cheated a tiny, economically depressed Wisconsin village out of $250,000 and later escaped from a federal prison.
He is also a polarizing figure in the Satmar sect of Hasidic Jews and was an instigator in a bitter, long-running dynastic struggle between two Satmar factions — even once provoking a brawl in a Brooklyn synagogue.
The fund-raiser, Jacob Brach, 55, gathered more than $30,000 in donations for the Thompson campaign this year, mainly from Satmar Hasidim and their business associates. He is the third largest bundler for Mr. Thompson, who has been raising money feverishly and making a strong push for Orthodox Jewish support in Brooklyn as he makes his second run for mayor.
All but one of the 180 contributions Mr. Brach collected were for $175 — the maximum that the city will match under its voluntary campaign financing program.
Mr. Thompson has a personal connection to Mr. Brach: his father, William C. Thompson Sr., a former judge, was a lawyer for Mr. Brach's Satmar faction. The elder Mr. Thompson appeared in court, as part of the faction's legal team, on a day in 2001 when Mr. Brach was questioned about his behavior and his criminal record.
Mr. Brach has not aided Mr. Thompson exclusively. In early 2012 he bundled at least $8,000 in donations for the mayoral campaign of Bill de Blasio, records indicate.
And he is not the only Satmar raising money in the mayor's race, or the busiest. Herman Friedman, a 34-year-old Brooklyn entrepreneur, collected more than $80,000 for the campaign of Christine C. Quinn, the City Council speaker. Through a spokesman, Mr. Friedman said he advocated for various issues in Brooklyn but declined to provide details or be interviewed.
Mr. Brach, also known as Yossi Brach, came to the attention of law enforcement officials as early as 1988, when he was accused by Union Carbide of Canada and another Canadian company of bilking them out of more than $300,000 by offering them patent rights to a disposable toilet seat cover.
Two years later, Mr. Brach, who then lived in Kiryas Joel in Orange County, posed as the millionaire owner of a knitting mill and got officials in Randolph, Wis. (which had a population of 1,600), to lend him $250,000 to relocate there. Tommy Thompson, the governor at the time, appeared with Mr. Brach at a news conference saying the move would create hundreds of jobs.
Mr. Brach pleaded guilty to wire fraud in 1990 in the Canada and Wisconsin cases. He agreed to reimburse the fraud victims, but a federal judge, Vincent L. Broderick, rejected his request for leniency and sentenced him to 27 months in prison.
"The picture I have is a man who develops schemes to enrich himself at the expense of others, schemes which are elaborate and which are drenched in fraud," the judge said. "You have been engaging in a way of life that involves deceiving and defrauding people on quite a sophisticated level."
A year later, Mr. Brach obtained a one-day medical pass from his minimum-security prison and did not return. Arrested in March 1992, he received an additional 10-month sentence.
In 2002, he was charged in Florida with securities and telecommunications fraud, accused of selling $25,000 in fake stock in an Internet company to a retired police chief who was dying of cancer. Prosecutors dropped the case after Mr. Brach refunded the money.
Mr. Brach did not respond to repeated telephone and e-mail messages on Sunday and Monday. A spokesman for Mr. Thompson's campaign declined to comment.
Within the publicity-averse Satmar community, according to Hasidim and others who know him, Mr. Brach has a reputation as a political operator and provocateur. He is associated with the Aroynem, a branch of the Satmars headed by Aron Teitelbaum, the leader of Kiryas Joel. The Zaloynim are a rival faction, based in Williamsburg and named for Zalmen Teitelbaum, Aron's brother.
During the 2001 New York mayoral race, while Zaloynim leaders were overseas, Mr. Brach led a contingent of Aroynem who endorsed Mark Green, a Democrat who was then the public advocate, without making clear that only one Satmar faction was on board. The stunt achieved little beyond embarrassing Mr. Green.
When the Satmar schism boiled over into the secular courts, Mr. Brach was named a plaintiff in a lawsuit by the Aroynem. His criminal record was discussed during cross-examination, and his antics in and out of the courtroom became a liability for the Aroynem, lawyers said.
The judge urged prosecutors to investigate Mr. Brach for inundating the court with what he called "false, incredible stories" accusing court officials of bribery and other improprieties, records show.
Defying a court order, Mr. Brach repeatedly disrupted worshipers in the main Satmar synagogue and at other events, shouting invectives against the Zaloynim and triggering repeated contempt-of-court citations, according to court papers. He was sentenced to 30 days.
Then in 2004, prosecutors said, Mr. Brach provoked a melee in the synagogue after he sat in a special chair reserved for the grand rabbi. Mr. Brach's leg was broken, according to news accounts.
Mr. Brach has also been associated with Der Blatt, a Yiddish-language newspaper aligned with the Aroynem. As recently as a year ago, he took the Aroynem's side in a radio debate with Hank Sheinkopf, a Zaloynim spokesman. Mr. Sheinkopf is now a political consultant for Mr. Thompson.
He is also a polarizing figure in the Satmar sect of Hasidic Jews and was an instigator in a bitter, long-running dynastic struggle between two Satmar factions — even once provoking a brawl in a Brooklyn synagogue.
The fund-raiser, Jacob Brach, 55, gathered more than $30,000 in donations for the Thompson campaign this year, mainly from Satmar Hasidim and their business associates. He is the third largest bundler for Mr. Thompson, who has been raising money feverishly and making a strong push for Orthodox Jewish support in Brooklyn as he makes his second run for mayor.
All but one of the 180 contributions Mr. Brach collected were for $175 — the maximum that the city will match under its voluntary campaign financing program.
Mr. Thompson has a personal connection to Mr. Brach: his father, William C. Thompson Sr., a former judge, was a lawyer for Mr. Brach's Satmar faction. The elder Mr. Thompson appeared in court, as part of the faction's legal team, on a day in 2001 when Mr. Brach was questioned about his behavior and his criminal record.
Mr. Brach has not aided Mr. Thompson exclusively. In early 2012 he bundled at least $8,000 in donations for the mayoral campaign of Bill de Blasio, records indicate.
And he is not the only Satmar raising money in the mayor's race, or the busiest. Herman Friedman, a 34-year-old Brooklyn entrepreneur, collected more than $80,000 for the campaign of Christine C. Quinn, the City Council speaker. Through a spokesman, Mr. Friedman said he advocated for various issues in Brooklyn but declined to provide details or be interviewed.
Mr. Brach, also known as Yossi Brach, came to the attention of law enforcement officials as early as 1988, when he was accused by Union Carbide of Canada and another Canadian company of bilking them out of more than $300,000 by offering them patent rights to a disposable toilet seat cover.
Two years later, Mr. Brach, who then lived in Kiryas Joel in Orange County, posed as the millionaire owner of a knitting mill and got officials in Randolph, Wis. (which had a population of 1,600), to lend him $250,000 to relocate there. Tommy Thompson, the governor at the time, appeared with Mr. Brach at a news conference saying the move would create hundreds of jobs.
Mr. Brach pleaded guilty to wire fraud in 1990 in the Canada and Wisconsin cases. He agreed to reimburse the fraud victims, but a federal judge, Vincent L. Broderick, rejected his request for leniency and sentenced him to 27 months in prison.
"The picture I have is a man who develops schemes to enrich himself at the expense of others, schemes which are elaborate and which are drenched in fraud," the judge said. "You have been engaging in a way of life that involves deceiving and defrauding people on quite a sophisticated level."
A year later, Mr. Brach obtained a one-day medical pass from his minimum-security prison and did not return. Arrested in March 1992, he received an additional 10-month sentence.
In 2002, he was charged in Florida with securities and telecommunications fraud, accused of selling $25,000 in fake stock in an Internet company to a retired police chief who was dying of cancer. Prosecutors dropped the case after Mr. Brach refunded the money.
Mr. Brach did not respond to repeated telephone and e-mail messages on Sunday and Monday. A spokesman for Mr. Thompson's campaign declined to comment.
Within the publicity-averse Satmar community, according to Hasidim and others who know him, Mr. Brach has a reputation as a political operator and provocateur. He is associated with the Aroynem, a branch of the Satmars headed by Aron Teitelbaum, the leader of Kiryas Joel. The Zaloynim are a rival faction, based in Williamsburg and named for Zalmen Teitelbaum, Aron's brother.
During the 2001 New York mayoral race, while Zaloynim leaders were overseas, Mr. Brach led a contingent of Aroynem who endorsed Mark Green, a Democrat who was then the public advocate, without making clear that only one Satmar faction was on board. The stunt achieved little beyond embarrassing Mr. Green.
When the Satmar schism boiled over into the secular courts, Mr. Brach was named a plaintiff in a lawsuit by the Aroynem. His criminal record was discussed during cross-examination, and his antics in and out of the courtroom became a liability for the Aroynem, lawyers said.
The judge urged prosecutors to investigate Mr. Brach for inundating the court with what he called "false, incredible stories" accusing court officials of bribery and other improprieties, records show.
Defying a court order, Mr. Brach repeatedly disrupted worshipers in the main Satmar synagogue and at other events, shouting invectives against the Zaloynim and triggering repeated contempt-of-court citations, according to court papers. He was sentenced to 30 days.
Then in 2004, prosecutors said, Mr. Brach provoked a melee in the synagogue after he sat in a special chair reserved for the grand rabbi. Mr. Brach's leg was broken, according to news accounts.
Mr. Brach has also been associated with Der Blatt, a Yiddish-language newspaper aligned with the Aroynem. As recently as a year ago, he took the Aroynem's side in a radio debate with Hank Sheinkopf, a Zaloynim spokesman. Mr. Sheinkopf is now a political consultant for Mr. Thompson.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/25/nyregion/fund-raiser-for-thompson-has-history-of-swindling.html?_r=0
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