NEW
BRUNSWICK The attorney for a rabbi charged with stealing $630,000 in
public tuition funds through a Lakewood special-needs school says the
evidence against Osher Eisemann was obtained from raids through overly
broad search warrants and should be thrown out.
The
state has until Sept. 8 to respond to the motion by Lee Vartan,
Eisemann's attorney, to suppress evidence from the trove of electronic
and paper documents recovered from raids at six locations. Middlesex
County Superior Court Judge Benjamin Bucca says he'll conduct a hearing
on the motion Sept. 29.
The raids took place in
June 2016 at the School for Children with Hidden Intelligence -- better
known by its acronym, SCHI (pronounced “shy”) -- as well as school
offices, Eisemann's home, and the homes of an SCHI employee and two
people who have business dealings with the school, according to new
court documents.
Eisemann is the founder and director of SCHI, whose predominant enrollment is from Orthodox Jewish familes.
Nine months after the raids, Eisemann, 60, was charged in a four-count indictment. He has pleaded not guilty.
Vartan,
from the Holland & Knight LLP law firm, New York, on Monday said
the state's evidence against Eisemann came from "facially and fatally
defective search warrants.''
In
court papers asking to have the evidence suppressed, Vartan wrote that
the searches "allowed the state to seize every stray scrap of paper
and electronic storage device across the six locations, regardless of
whether the items seized related at all to the state’s investigation,
and regardless of whether the state had probable cause to seize such
item.''
The case is being heard in Middlesex
County. Three of the districts that send children to SCHI are in the
county: Highland Park, Edison and Monroe.
The
charges against Eisemann include theft by unlawful
taking, misapplication of government property, misconduct by a corporate
official, and money laundering — all second-degree offenses that carry
up to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $150,000, state Attorney
General Christopher Porrino has said.
The
school's fundraising foundation, the nonprofit Services for Hidden
Intelligence, LLC, was also named in the indictment under the same
charges. Attorneys for the foundation have also entered a not guilty
plea.
Eisemann has not been detained, pending the outcome of the indictments, Porrino spokesman Peter Aseltine said.
Eisemann plans to continue as director of SCHI but said he'd step down if he felt he was hurting the school, Vartan said.
Since
the indictment, the Press reported that the SCHI
overcharged Lakewood and other school districts by more than $340,000 in
one year, according to a state audit of the 2011-12 school year. SCHI
is appealing the findings. Audits in 2002 and 2012, found that the
school did not conduct background checks on employees, as required by
state law, and often uses public money to pay teachers in positions for
which they aren't qualified.
Bob Jordan bjordan@gannettnj.com
4 comments:
What chutzpah. Frumies aren't entitled to due process.
Quite revealing
Is this man related to Baltimore rabbi Moshe Eisemann from your sidebar? (He has many relatives living in Lakewood.)
The raids were in June of 2016. in May of 2016 Eisemann, through Services for Hidden Intelligence, bought a Resort in the Poconos (Pike County, PA) for 0ver $1.5 million. He has spent hundreds of thousands at this Resort so it can be opened to the public. The kids at the school will never miss the money.....what a shame.
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