A venerable Wiliamsburg rabbi and his brother were charged on Wednesday with stealing $220,000 from the city for more than a decade in a bait-and-switch housing scheme.
Leib Glanz, a former city Corrections rabbi, participated in a scam to collect the federal housing subsidies while living in his brother Menashe’s Ross Street apartment, city investigators said.
Glanz’s brother received federally subsidized housing benefits — but actually lived in a building down the street, ceding his apartment to his freeloading rabbi brother, the feds said.
A Department of Investigation spokeswoman said it was the largest tenant housing fraud case the city has uncovered. Both men are facing 15 years in a less-inviting abode.
“We cannot tolerate stealing from the public,” said U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, who will prosecute.
Glanz is one of the most widely respected figures in Hasidic Williamsburg. He counsels — and fundraises for — the Satmar Aronite community. And he once served as a financial adviser for Rep. Ed Towns (D–Williamsburg).
But this is not the first time he got in trouble for flouting the law.
Glanz served as a city prison rabbi until 2009, when correction officers discovered he was bringing Orthodox prisoners kosher food twice a week and once finagled a bar mitzvah in a prison visitation room for the son of one powerful inmate.
He resigned from his post as a city chaplain after investigators alterted Mayor Bloomberg about his lavish “tzedakah.”
But if he goes to jail on the new charge, he’ll already be quite comfortable counseling his fellow inmates.
