Seven Defendants Sentenced For Defrauding Federal Program That Provided Technology Funding For Rockland County Schools | USAO-SDNY

Damian Williams, the United States Lawyer for the Southern District of New York, declared nowadays the sentencing of all seven defendants who formerly pled guilty to defrauding the federal “E-Rate” method, designed to offer info technology to underprivileged colleges, in relationship with E-Fee money supplied to personal religious faculties in Rockland County, New York.  PERETZ KLEIN, BEN KLEIN, MOSHE SCHWARTZ, SIMON GOLDBRENER, SHOLEM STEINBERG, ARON MELBER, and SUSAN KLEIN experienced every pled responsible in White Plains federal court docket to one particular depend of conspiring against the United States and were sentenced in proceedings held in between June 2022 and nowadays.  PERETZ KLEIN was sentenced to 48 months in jail BEN KLEIN was sentenced to 27 months in prison MOSHE SCHWARTZ was sentenced to 27 months in prison SIMON GOLBRENER was sentenced to 24 months in jail SHOLEM STEINBERG was sentenced to 12 months and 1 working day in prison AARON MELBER was sentenced to nine months in prison and SUSAN KLEIN was sentenced to time served.  U.S. District Choose Kenneth M. Karas imposed all sentences.

U.S. Legal professional Damian Williams reported: “The seven defendants who have now pled guilty in this case sought to steal from our most vulnerable inhabitants: economically deprived young children.  The defendants established elaborate schemes with entire disregard for the fact that the cash they selfishly stole must have absent toward delivering small children with a great deal-essential technologies to more their training and brighten their foreseeable future.  Every defendant now faces major penalties for their callous crime.”

According to the allegations made in the Indictment and the Informations to which the defendants pled responsible, as properly as the defendants’ admissions in court docket:

The E-Level application distributes resources to schools and libraries primarily serving economically disadvantaged young children so that those institutions can manage necessary telecommunication providers, online obtain, and relevant machines.  Above 30,000 apps from educational institutions and libraries looking for money to serve economically disadvantaged little ones ended up acquired each and every calendar year throughout the relevant time period of time, and just about every yr, requests for E-Rate funds have exceeded resources accessible.  In buy to acquire people resources, academic institutions certify that they are paying for equipment and companies from a private seller.  If approved, the system defrays the price tag by up to 90{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf}.  The academic establishment is supposed to enter into an open up bidding system in buy to pick a vendor, and the instructional establishment and seller then post a series of certifications that they comply with a variety of prerequisites of the E-Fee system.  A university making use of for E-Fee resources might hire a specialist, but that advisor should be independent of the sellers competing to offer E-Charge funded gear and solutions.

The schools at issue in this case never ever obtained tens of millions of dollars’ value of these objects and solutions for which the defendants billed the E-Rate program.  In other conditions, the educational institutions and the defendants asked for hundreds of thousands of pounds of complex technological know-how that served no authentic objective for the student population.  For case in point, from 2009 by means of 2015, just one day care heart that served toddlers from the ages of two through four requested in excess of $700,000 – nearly $500,000 of which was in the long run funded – for devices and solutions – such as online video conferencing and distance finding out, a “media grasp program,” complex telecommunications methods supporting at least 23 strains, and large-speed web – from providers controlled by specific defendants.  In nonetheless other cases, the schools acquired equipment and services that fulfilled the capabilities for which the educational facilities experienced asked for E-Level resources (such as offering the school with internet accessibility), but the schools and the defendants materially overbilled the E-Charge system for the merchandise supplied in purchase to enrich by themselves at the expenditure of the underprivileged small children the program was intended to serve.

The defendants also perverted the honest and open up bidding method expected by the E‑Rate software.  Defendants who held by themselves out as impartial consultants working for the colleges in truth labored for and have been paid out by other defendants who managed vendor organizations.  These defendants introduced the universities with kinds to sign or certify, awarding E-Rate funded contracts to businesses owned by a number of defendants.  As a outcome of wrong and deceptive filings, the defendants obtained tens of millions of pounds in E-Charge funds for gear and providers that they did not, in reality, supply and which the educational institutions did not use, and the defendants purporting to act as consultants accepted payments totaling hundreds of thousands of pounds from the suppliers, irrespective of falsely presenting on their own as independent of the sellers.

In return for their participation in the scheme to defraud the E‑Rate system, certain universities and college officers obtained a wide range of improper gains from selected defendants, together with a proportion of the funds fraudulently obtained from E-Rate for tools and providers that were being not, in point, delivered to the educational facilities no cost products paid out for with E-Price cash but not approved by the method, such as cellphones for school employees’ personalized use and alarm devices and security machines (which the E-Level plan does not authorize) put in at the schools and cost-free services for which the E-Charge method authorizes partial reimbursement (this kind of as world-wide-web entry) but for which the schools did not – contrary to their statements in filings – make any payment at all.

PERETZ KLEIN, SUSAN KLEIN, BEN KLEIN, and SHOLEM STEINBERG held on their own out as vendors to universities taking part in the E‑Rate program.  Businesses controlled by these defendants asked for about $35 million in E‑Rate money and gained in excess of $14 million in E‑Rate cash from in or about 2010 to in or about 2016.  Each and every of these defendants has now admitted that the corporations they managed did not, in truth, deliver much of the products for which they billed the federal govt.

SIMON GOLDBRENER and MOSHE SCHWARTZ held them selves out as consultants who labored for academic institutions supposedly assisting colleges to take part in the E-Rate application by, between other matters, holding a fair and open up bidding process to pick charge-productive vendors.  GOLDBRENER and SCHWARTZ have now admitted that they have been, in truth, paid hundreds of thousands of pounds by the sellers to full and file fake E-Charge paperwork that circumvented the bidding approach and resulted in the payment of hundreds of thousands of dollars to the suppliers.

ARON MELBER was an official at a private religious school in Rockland County, New York, that participated in the E-Level program with some of the defendants.  MELBER has now admitted that he filed false certifications with the E-Fee method, falsely proclaiming to have acquired approved E‑Rate funded machines and services from vendors selected through a reasonable and open up bidding procedure.

Every single defendant pled responsible to one particular rely of a conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

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PERETZ KLEIN, 68, of Spring Valley, New York, was sentenced on June 8, 2022, to 48 months in prison adopted by 24 months of supervised release and was ordered to forfeit $1,144,288.37 and to fork out restitution of the very same quantity. 

BEN KLEIN, 43, of Monsey, New York, was sentenced on October 19, 2022, to 27 months in prison adopted by 24 months of supervised launch and was purchased to forfeit $412,586.37 and to pay restitution of the same volume. 

MOSHE SCHWARTZ, 50, of Monsey, New York, was sentenced on June 9, 2022, to 27 months in prison followed by 24 months of supervised launch and was requested to forfeit $275,160.00 and to spend restitution of the exact volume. 

SIMON GOLDBRENER, 59, of Monsey, New York, was sentenced on November 7, 2022, to 24 months in jail adopted by 24 months of supervised release and was requested to forfeit $479,357.18 and to fork out restitution of the similar amount.

SHOLEM STEINBERG, 43, of Monsey, New York, was sentenced on November 7, 2022, to 12 months and 1 day in jail followed by 24 months of supervised release and was requested to forfeit $191,423.50 and to fork out restitution of the exact amount. 

ARON MELBER, 47, of Monsey, New York, was sentenced on February 28, 2023, to nine months in prison adopted by 24 months of supervised release and was ordered to forfeit $127,654.55 and to pay out restitution of the identical total.

SUSAN KLEIN, 62, of Spring Valley, New York, was sentenced on June 8, 2022, to time served followed by 12 months of supervised release and was purchased to forfeit $1,144,288.37 and to pay restitution of the very same volume. 

Mr. Williams thanked the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Federal Communications Commission – Business office of the Inspector Common, and the Rockland County District Attorney’s Place of work for their outstanding work on the investigation. 

This case is being handled by the Office’s White Plains Division.  Assistant U.S. Attorneys Michael D. Maimin, Hagan Scotten, and Vladislav Vainberg are in demand of the prosecution.