Rubashkin Prosecutor: Sholom Rubashkin deserves the prison time !

Cedar Rapids, IA - Sholom Rubashkin deserves the prison time he received Tuesday in federal court, prosecutors said after a judge sentenced the former eastern Iowa meatpacking executive to 27 years.

Bob Teig, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office, said the massive financial fraud scheme at Agriprocessors Inc. "cries out for a sentence like this."

Rubashkin, 50, was sentenced in U.S. District Court in Cedar Rapids and ordered to pay $27 million in restitution to banks and a cattle provider caught in the scheme.

Rubashkin was convicted of 86 fraud-related federal crimes in November, for his part in an effort to defraud the plant's lenders to collect advances on a loan. The plan collapsed after a May 2008 raid at the Postville plant that forced the owners to file for bankruptcy.

Prosecutors, who have seldom spoke publicly since the immigration raid, said the fraud case ranked among the largest ever in Iowa's northern district.

"It is a lengthy sentence," Teig said. "But he earned a lengthy sentence. It's hard to get a 27-year sentence for a white-collar crime. It is very difficult."

Teig said Rubashkin's crimes differed from other high-profile, white-collar cases with lesser sentences because of his actions. U.S. District Judge Linda Reade concluded in her ruling that Rubashkin led the fraud, involved others in the plot and lied at his trial. Teig said Rubashkin consistently refused to cooperate with authorities.

Assistant U.S Attorney Peter Deegan Jr., one of three prosecutors in the case, said financial crimes kept surfacing as investigators dug into the plant's books. Rubashkin's money laundering through a local school and grocery store hindered but did not stop the investigation, he said.

"You've got such a wide range of criminal activity here," Deegan said. "The case just kept building, and building, and building. Every time you turned over another rock, there was another crime being committed - and usually, it led to Sholom Rubashkin."

Defense lawyers vowed to appeal, and railed against the sentence in a press conference with at least 100 of Rubashkin's Orthodox Jewish supporters.

Several in the group toted signs in front of the television cameras. One sign read: "27 years for overstating assets? That makes sense? OMG!"

"While this may appear to be the end of the case, it is not," defense lawyer Guy Cook said. "It is indeed the beginning of the case. It's round one, if you will."

Bob Barr, a former Georgia congressman who joined Rubashkin's legal team for the appeal, said the sentence was "unjust, unnecessary, and unreasonable." He held up a copy of Reade's ruling and said, "This will not stand."

Rubashkin showed little emotion when the decision was read.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Sholom Rubashkin
• Cedar Rapids
• Agriprocessors
• Postville
• U.S Attorney Peter Deegan

[davidyh1]

we need to prosecute those prosecutors

[davidyh1]

@BrooklynNotQueens i don't understand how one jew can wish 27 years for another fellow Jew. so if you're not Chabad Rubashkin has to sit in jail? i'm also not chabad. i think you need bedika?maybe your mothe was a shiksa. המתפלל בעד חבירו הוא נענה תחילה. עס איז נישט שיין וואס די שרייבסט

[narcovamp88]

Bet he has a fun time spending 27 years in prison cause it doesn't look like he can really fight.

[hillelbp]

Rubashkin dos not deserv 27 years he is a nice man and the judge is a ugly women

[hillelbp]

I am not finish save rubashkin from the notzis

[hillelbp]

Dirty prosecutor. Sholom dos not deserve 27 years

[BrooklynNotQueens]

@sholom247 sorry we Jews don't believe in hell but since you're christian its that you express yourself in your christian cultural terms.

now stay away from Jewish kids with your chabad-jews-for-jesus-messiani­c thing and have a great day!

[sholom247]

@BrooklynNotQueens go to hell!!!!

[BrooklynNotQueens]

@hlwrites dude you are confusing hasids with Jews...the two are different religions but share the kosher thing.

[BrooklynNotQueens]

@davidyh1 as i said chabad is NOT judaism so my comment does not relate to a fellow jew.

its interesting how you attempt to misunderstand this.

you say you ain't chabad so maybe you should convert to chabad.

they have this great benefit: they let you use a non chabad hooker when your wife is niddah because chabad teaches that mastubation is way more evil than incest

(read the pagan book Tanya chap 7).

[BrooklynNotQueens]

@davidyh1 i'm Jewish not chabad but i don't see any connection between your comment and mine.

was your mother jewish or a chabad shiksa?

сатана = Шнеерсон