The defense team for Sholom Mordechai Rubashkin has appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court the lower courts’ decision to deny bail for the Orthodox Chassidic Jewish businessman before sentencing next month.
Rubashkin’s counsel, led by appellate attorney Nathan Lewin, filed a petition to the U.S. Supreme Court on March 11, asking the high court to overturn the decision of the lower courts denying Rubashkin bail pending his forthcoming sentencing.
He has now taken the additional step of making a direct application to Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, who presides over the Iowa judicial district in which Rubashkin’s case is being heard, to grant Rubashkin his immediate release on bail pending his sentencing and appeal.
Lewin asserts that federal prosecutors were overzealous in Mr. Rubashkin’s prosecution from the start, submitting him to considerably more severe restrictions and potential punishment than other employers targeted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials for hiring even larger numbers of illegal workers than were discovered at Agriprocessors.
He further points out that the judge presiding over Mr. Rubashkin’s case improperly allowed prejudicial evidence of alleged immigration infractions, despite the fact that the only charges against Mr. Rubaskin related to alleged bank fraud.
As reports of these and other irregularities in the case have filtered down to the grassroots community, several Jewish organizations have joined in questioning the basis for prosecutors’ assertion that Rubashkin is a flight risk who must remain imprisoned before sentencing.
They are also critical of the federal government for relentlessly targeting Rubashkin over the last two years, seemingly to retroactively justify the massive 2008 raid on the Agriprocessors plant – which included Black Hawk military helicopters and more than 600 federal agents – that economically destroyed the town of Postville and left the company bankrupt.
Mr. Rubashkin’s bank fraud convictions were for inflating invoices to expand a line of credit he used to operate his business, even though timely payments were made on the loan and the bank appeared uninterested in the accuracy of the invoices.
Prosecutors were allowed to include inflammatory evidence regarding the employment of illegal workers at the bank fraud trial, even though the judge had previously ruled such evidence would prejudice the jury and had severed the immigration and bank fraud cases for that very reason.
The charges regarding harboring illegal immigrants were eventually dropped.
Perhaps most dismaying, prosecutors fragmented two basic charges into 163 counts in seven superseding indictments.
And the prosecutors have shown unusual harshness in resisting Mr. Rubashkin’s request – even with the posting of a large bond and his hiring of a round-the-clock private guard – to spend the first days of Passover and celebrate the seders with his family.
“We are deeply concerned about the seeming pattern of overzealous prosecution in this case,” said Rabbi Pesach Lerner, executive vice president of the National Council of Young Israel.
Similarly, Rabbi Chaim Dovid Zwiebel, executive vice president of Agudath Israel of America, reported that “the volume of e-mails and phone calls we have received about the Rubashkin case has reached a loud crescendo in recent weeks, as the full horror of how he is being singled out for harsh treatment has become strikingly clear.”
Rabbis Lerner and Zwiebel, along with representatives of other Jewish groups, are exploring ways of expressing their deep concern to the federal prosecutors in Iowa as well as the Justice Department at the national level.
In the meantime, private advocates for Rubashkin have launched an online petition JusticeforSholom.org (not to be confused with the Pesach petition, as this petition is critical according to activists).
Despite the fact that the jury found in a special interrogatory that Rubashkin did not profit personally from false invoices presented to the lending bank, prosecutors have indicated that they view an appropriate prison sentence as being in the 22 to 27 year range. Rubashkin is the father of 10 children, including an autistic teenage boy who depends heavily on him.
Members of the community who wish to communicate their respectful concern over the handling of the Rubashkin case are urged to sign the online petition and contact the Justice Department – Office of Intergovernmental and Public Liaison at 202-514-3465 or [email protected] (cc: [email protected])
THIS IS HURTING VEERYBODY SOOO MUCH! WHY OH WHY?
HE NEEDS HIS FAMILY AND HIS FAMILY NEEDS HIM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HASHEM HELPPPP!!!!
rebbe, oy rebbe we need you
Hashem, Hashem Keil Rachum
we’re sick of this golus,
can’t bear any more,
oh, Why don’t you open the door?!…
with hashems help he will be freed through bail
u guys r such wierdos seriously.
yes, for sure hashem sees comments on collive.
the catch is, that commenting on collive.com to hashem is not the way to do it.
if you rly want to ask hashem for something, the right way to do it is by davening, tehillim, mitzvos, v’chadome
hashem Will answer…. it says the days before moshiach Hashem will take the world and shake it vigorously …. to see who is strong enough to hold on… i think the worls was just shooken harder … may this be the hardest shake and may we hear the shofar of moshaich Bikarev Beyomenu MAMASH…. all tehillim all hachlotos tovos _and all comments on collive.com_ are deffinantly read by Hashem… he is just waiting for the right time … for the right kapital, for the right hachlata, for the right mitzva, FOR THE RIGHT COMMENT, for the right time… and then… Read more »
of course He is!
whoever said our tehhillim isnt helping its not true we dont know what its doing secondly…i think its wayyy about time that moshiach came ITS NOT NORMAL ANYMORE not like it was ever normal and we will i”h spend pesach in YERUSHALAIM!
you said that haShem isn’t reading the comments on collive…
i think He is
He’s just giving them about as much attention as i give my required reading for school
which is next to nothing
or He is answering in the negative
or He is building the suspense for a greater joy when the answer is positive
im yirtzeh hashem it’s the last option
amen!
amen
I think pepole have to realize that saying tehillim and crying to hashem is not enough we have to also work on our selves in adding an extra mitzva a extra chumra on ourselves and to have in mind sholom mordichai that hashem shall help,him and his family
We NEEEEEEEEED Moshiach NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WE CANNOT WAIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
ITS CRITICAL THAT PEOPLE REALIZE THAT THIS IS NOT THE PESACH PETITION (WHICH WAS DONE WITHOUT THE ASKONIMS CONSENT), ITS CRITICAL THAT EVERYONE DO THEIR UTMOST TO GARNER AS MANY SIGNATURES AS POSSIBLE
we need MOISHACH NOW!
I don’t think hashem is reading the comments on collive!!!!!
im not just a regular commenter here on collive.com
i am a lubav.
i never met R’ rubashkin, i only started hearing of him when this whole story started. and mostly from collive.com i learned alot about this man.
as a result – every single day without fail, i say more then 10 perakim of tehillim in zechus of R’ sholom rubashkin, and is this what comes out?? i wonder, i really wonder, what can i do to help him????tehillim, im doing already. what else is possible to do?
anyone, even a fraud joker, comment here w an idea.
dont worry moshiach is gona come this second & thats better than just rubashkin geting sent out of jail
Hashem why are you doing this to him??
He is a really nice man that DOSE NOT
deserv to!! Hashem please have mercy on him!!