NEW YORK
Forward
Josh Nathan-Kazis
April 6, 2016
On the Jewish holiday of Purim, ultra-Orthodox big shots in Brooklyn invite police officials over for holiday meals. Then, they share the pictures on social media in an implicit contest over who drew the highest-ranking officer.
Now, those cozy relationships are drawing scrutiny amid a reported federal corruption investigation involving Orthodox businessmen and a raft of New York Police Department officials.
One informed source, a private security consultant who works in the Orthodox community, told the Forward that one of the businessmen named in press reports about the investigation, Hasidic activist Jeremy Reichberg, flaunted his ties to New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio to exert influence in the NYPD’s 66th Precinct, which encompasses Boro Park and other heavily Orthodox Brooklyn neighborhoods.
“He’s working with the Mayor’s office, so he had a little bit more connection than any other schmuck on the street,” said Joe Levin, founder of T.O.T. Private Consulting, a security consulting firm specializing in the Orthodox community.
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