NEW YORK (AP) — A Brooklyn rabbi has been convicted of tax fraud and ordered to pay more than $520,000 for soliciting donations for phony charities.
New York state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman says 53-year-old Yaakov Weingarten and his wife, Rivka, raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for charities that supposedly benefited health care and other causes in Israel.
But Schneiderman said the Weingartens used much of the money for personal expenses such as car loans, dentist bills and home improvements.
The judgment signed Wednesday in Brooklyn state Supreme Court bars Weingarten and two associates from any fundraising activities in New York state.
Approximately $360,000 of the funds from the civil judgment will go to Israeli charities that carry out programs similar to those that Weingarten pretended he was raising money for.
