A New Jersey rabbi stole more than half a million dollars from a fund meant for educating special needs kids and started a clothing business, the New Jersey attorney general says.
Rabbi Osher Eisemann was indicted Wednesday, charged with misappropriating over $630,000 in public tuition funds meant to go to the School for Children with Hidden Intelligence that he ran in Lakewood.
The private school receives about $1.8 million per month in tuition from the Lakewood School District and other public school districts that send special needs students there, the attorney general's office said.
However Eisemann allegedly started a fundraising foundation called 'Service for Hidden Intelligence' to steal about $430,000 in public tuition money.
He used that money to start a clothing business called TAZ Apparel, prosecutors say.
“By allegedly stealing public funds that were strictly earmarked for the education of special needs students, Rabbi Eisemann broke the law, violated the public’s trust, and betrayed the vulnerable population of children served by SCHI,” attorney general Christopher Porrino said.
Porrino said Eisemann had a duty to use every tuition dollar for the benefit of the children at the school, "but instead he allegedly diverted hundreds of thousands of tuition dollars to gamble on a personal business venture.”
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The rabbi will be ordered to appear in court at a later date for arraignment.
