A RABBI with a taste for cocaine and prostitutes has been handed a six month drug rehabilitation order.
Rabbi Baruch Chalomish was also ordered to carry out 60 days work in the community.
Last month a jury at Manchester Crown Court found him not guilty of supplying drugs but he admitted possessing cocaine.
The 54-year-old father of three, who says he is worth £7million net from his commercial property empire, admitted he had become addicted to cocaine, spending up to £1,000 a week on the drug.
He said he sought solace in cocaine and prostitutes following the death of his 'angel', wife Freda, from cancer at the age of 40 in 1996.
Religious
Sentencing Rabbi Chalomish today, Judge Michael Henshell said: “You have led a religious life and come from a religious background. Your training has acquitted you for life as a rabbi. You have served a congregation quite some time ago but more recently you have been responsible for teaching young people.
“I am absolutely certain they would have looked up to you for guidance and respected you for your learning and spirituality and no doubt for your generosity for those less well off in the community.
“However, you had a secret life, as it was referred to in court. But that secret life has been exposed to the glare of publicity and I’m quite certain it’s brought upon you a degree of recrimination from the public and from your community. You will have found the publicity this case attracted, quite rightly, has brought you a degree of contempt from people who knew you.”
Judge Henshell added: “You have undertaken work to combat your addiction. You were heavily addicted to cocaine and you have been suffering noticeably from withdrawal from cocaine. It will be a difficult task for you to address. I’m quite sure with the help of others it’s a task you will accomplish.”
Aside from handing the rabbi six months’ supervision by the probation service, he was also ordered to pay the full prosecution costs of £3,899.
After the case, a spokesman for the rabbi said: “He is grateful to the judge for his understanding and compassion.”
When police raided a one bed hotel apartment on Shudehill, Manchester, on January 5, they found Chalomish together with convicted drug dealer Nasir Abbas along with 50 grams of cocaine in a bedroom, digital scales, nearly £3,000 in cash and a cutting agent used to dilute drugs before it is sold.
The flat was used for cocaine parties.
Police also raided the rabbi’s home on Upper Park Road, Salford, and found a further 50 grams of cocaine, more cutting agent and nearly £16,000 in cash.
Generous
By the time he was arrested at the Shudehill flat, the rabbi had been on a five day cocaine binge. He admitted he used prostitutes and was generous with them.
However, although he admitted possessing the drug, he denied the prosecution claim that he was financing “a commercial cocaine supply operation“.
He said the huge supply of the drug found at his home was for his personal use, claiming he was a natural hoarder who liked to stockpile other goods like tins of food and boxes of tissue as well as cocaine.
His co-accused Abbas, 54, of Manchester Road, Chorlton, was jailed last month for six years in his absence after the jury found him guilty of supplying the cocaine at the party.
Cocaine addict Rabbi escapes jail
December 17, 2009
Comments
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That's one 'Rockin' Rabbi'!!!
Of course, as any Rabbi will tell you, the old Bolivian Marching Powder isn't kosher.
Oh, right...
And let that be a lesson to others.
Whilst you can only feel sympathy for the death of his wife it is surely just another sob story to get a lenient sentence.If a Rabbi cannot rely on his faith at a bad time he has no right to teach religion to others.
steve grimsley, Perth
Doesn't religion tell us that we go to a better place when we die? Why then did this religious man take to drugs and prostitutes following the death of his wife. Does he know something that the rest of us don't or was it as you say a sob story to obtain a lenient sentence.
Its Bob Hoskins!
Stevedore,Quayside
Its a sob story mate.
Also if you get someone called Abbas and a Rabbi in a one roomed flat then Cocaine should be legalised as it obviously has the power to overcome religious divides.
I do believe we all go to a better place......its called Perth
Happy Christmas Stevedore
The sentence is well over due.
steve grimsley, Perth
Lol; Happy Christmas to you also Steve.
Does the lack of comments actually printed here show he has friends in high places.
Legalise it!
you could make a cracking film out of this story
happy chanukah
How much money has this trial cost ?
Ordered to do 60days work in the community?
Does he not already work in the community?
60 days work in the community its not to be sniffed at
It means we'll have to employ a new phrase.....
'Going at it like Rabbi's'
So, altogether he is found in possession, at two different addresses, of 19000 pounds in cash, almost four ounces of cocaine and a cutting agents (thats glucose or baby laxative to us) in both places and he isn't dealing? He was also with a known drug dealer (who was locked up for his part) remember. This is what I think is so wrong with the british judicial system. Not tht they don't incacerate every petty theif that appears in the MEN (this seems to really annoy a lot of people here) but rather that they don't lock up people like this guy. What is the message here? You can buy any kind of justice you like? And can somebody please tell me what is meant by '60 days' community payback? Last I heard judges handed down community service in hours, not days. This sounds like it has been deliberately fudged to cover up that he is only going to end up doing a few hours. The maximum amount of community service that can be handed down is 300 hours. I want to know how many this guy actually got.
I also want to know why the police didn't insist he was charged with supplying a class A drug when, as far as I am aware, you are routinely charged with this if you are found in posession of drugs (even a piddling ounce of hashish) and scales - not to mention a cutting agent. Not too mention 19k of cash. Not to mention the same things found at two addresses. Are we to believe that the CPS didn't feel they would get a conviction?
Sends out all the wrong signals.
What a joke, deffo friends in high places.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Hello again,I lived on my own for 18 years and I know just he he felt I used to go with ladies of the night who used drugs, but the sight of them using drugs I found very sickening and fortunately it stopped from doing the same, I made friends of a few of them, But i eventualy went on holiday to Thailand 18 years ago where I met and married my Thai wife, it took me 7 years to get her a UK visa, but now after 18 years of marriage we are both very happy, Iam now 80 and my wife is 48, So my best wishes go the the rabbi and I hope he meets a very nice lady in the near future and has a happy life in the future, please enjoy yourself over the holidays, and the best of luck to you from old oddlegs from Bury
If you have any future partys Rabbi,Please send me an invite.Sounds good!
dont rabbis already do community work.thats their job where is his punishment
Isnt throwing a 'cocaine party' possession with intent to supply??? Or are you saying every single person at that party provided their own cocaine? STINKS!
I cant help thinking that magistrates erred on the side of caution for fear of being thought anti Semitic. This man is a disgrace to his culture and religion and should be behind bars. Perhaps the inland revenue could also investigate how he came to be worth £7m...all above board of course...just like his secret life of vice.