Erica Brown is wrong about what to do to combat corruption in the Orthodox Jewish Community in America

Looking back, we found this post about a crisis of a moral vacuum. We thought, well just buy a new vacuum bag and that's that. But no, not what the ersatz leading thinker Erica Brown says.

So here is our repost from 7/27/09 to illustrate once more that some urgent books just do not stand the test of time, to wit, there was no crisis and there was no vacuum and the author and her book offered no solution. Oh well, the post follows.

---

The list of recent Orthodox Jewish scandals continues to grow. The arrest by the FBI of Rabbi Saul Kassin and others with title rabbi in the Syrian community in Brooklyn has brought another spotlight on wrongdoing in our world.

Hat tip to Henry who pointed us to this interview in the Atlantic by Jeffrey Goldberg. Goldberg talked with Erica Brown, whom he calls, "One of the leading Jewish thinkers in America today." We don't know much about this person. But based on the interview, we beg to differ about his assessment of her "leading" qualities.

Why is this Rosh Hashanah different from all the other Rosh Hashanahs?

Why is this Rosh Hashanah different from all the other Rosh Hashanahs?

Because on this holiday rabbinic leaders are asking their colleagues to speak out in favor of ethical living.

What a novelty.

Orthodox Jewish leaders urge N.J. rabbis to give sermons on ethical living
by Jeff Diamant/The Star-Ledger

In an unusual move, a group of influential Orthodox Jewish leaders has written a letter explicitly urging American rabbis to speak during this year's High Holiday sermons on the importance of ethical living, in response to some recent high-profile arrests of Jews, including two rabbis in Deal in July.

In the Sept. 3 letter sent to about 2,000 rabbis nationwide, the leaders of Yeshiva University, the Orthodox Union, and the Rabbinical Council of America cited "the recent scenes of religious Jews being led off in handcuffs, charged with corruption, money laundering, and even organ trafficking."...more...

NPR: Gemara = $1000 to Crooked NJ Rabbis

NPR alerts us to the slang of NJ Rabbis. "Let's learn together, you bring the gemaras," doesn't mean what we thought it meant.

Court Papers: The Language Of Money Laundering
By Robert Smith

The characters in the Sopranos aren't the only criminals who love their food and colorful slang. Court documents in last month's big New Jersey corruption bust reveal that the rabbis charged with money laundering have their own dramatic flair. The court papers say an informant was taping all his meetings, and the results read like a Kosher version of Goodfellas.

Bank fraud is repeatedly referred to as a "schnookie" in the charges, which makes it adorable. And since five of the accused are rabbis, they know their way around the ancient codes. "Gemara" may be the second part of the Talmud, but the court papers say that for these guys it also meant a thousand dollars. "I'm bringing 55 gemaras," the informant says, meaning $55,000. The accused would allegedly set up times to meet by asking when they wanted to "learn together."

But apparently the rabbis were more hungry for food than for knowledge. Prosecutors say these portly gentlemen would meet in chocolate shops, bakeries, grocery stores. According to official charges, when they went for the laundered money, they would say they were going to "pick up the potatoes." The cash came bundled in cereal boxes, the charges say: $97,000 in Apple Jacks, $118,000 in Cinnabon Crunch.

NBC Denies New Law and Order Rabbis series in the works

NBC has denied that it is planning a new spinoff of the popular "Law and Order" TV series.

So it is not true.

This quashes all the rumors of a new series that was allegedly going to be called,

"Law and Order: ORU"

(Orthodox Rabbis Unit)

Jewish Standard has six stories about the (Latest) New Jersey Rabbi and Politician Scandals

Teneck's Jewish Standard has six solid stories about the (latest) New Jersey rabbi and politician scandals...

Bergen Record Page One: Two Tales of Solomon Dwek's Political "Gifts"

The first Bergen Record page one story today of the rabbi's son lists (see below) the NJ state politicians who received "gifts" from Solomon Dwek, the informant who was responsible for the arrest of 44 people in last week's FBI corruption roundup... "Key witness made nearly $200,000 in campaign contributions."

The second story shows why we have to put "gifts" in quotation marks. It traces a typical quid pro quo (that is, a favor or advantage given or expected in return for something) of NJ "gift" giving -- how those payoffs get you expedited service at the Department of Environmental Protection.

The story, "DEP e-mails follow lawmaker's request," tells us that, "Days before his arrest on federal corruption charges, a state assemblyman called New Jersey's environmental protection agency seeking help for a developer prosecutors say gave the lawmaker $15,000 in bribes."

This is a textbook example of how bribery and corruption transforms a culture of fairness with an even playing field and equal opportunity for all into a murky swamp land of mobsters and crooks.

Just a question. In what course at what university or business school will they teach that this is a textbook example of wrong conduct?

Better yet. At what Yeshiva or Christian Seminary will they give lessons on how to detect and deter such corruption?

None that we know of.

The list of "gift" recipients from the Record:

The informant at the center of a recent corruption scandal was a frequent campaign contributor before he went undercover. Here’s some of the recipients, and what they say they will do with the money now.

Recipient	Total received	Plans for the money
N.J. Republican State Committee.	$51,000	Giving to charity
Assembly Republican Victory Committee.	$20,000	Keeping it
U.S. Rep. Frank J. Pallone, Jr., D-Long Branch	$18,900	Charity
State Sen. Thomas Kean Jr., R-Westfield	$8,400	Charity*
State Sen. Joe Kyrillos, R-Monmouth	$5,200	Charity
N.J. Democratic State Committee	$6,500	Keeping it
U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J.	$3,500	Charity
State Sen. Jennifer Beck, R-Monmouth	$2,750	Charity
State Sen. Brian Stack, D-Union City	$2,600	No response

Update: Scandals bring back the spotlights... In June theTimes Praised Syrian Jewish Flatbush Yeshiva Graduate Playwright David Adjmi

Robert Stolarik for The New York Times. David Adjmi outside the high school division of the Yeshiva of Flatbush, in the Midwood section of Brooklyn.

Update: We would not be surprised to see this play back in a theater real soon now following the unfortunate publicity that the Syrian Jewish community has suffered after the FBI sting operation and the subsequent arrest of Rabbi Saul Kassin and other prominent members of the group.

In June, the reviews for the Adjmi play were mixed. But the Times liked it as this review shows: Once a Boyhood Outsider, Now Reflecting on His Tribe By FELICIA LEE

We see this situation as bad for his tribe, but a boost for the writer. David Adjmi’s play “Stunning” is set in the Syrian-Jewish enclave of Brooklyn where he grew up. [The Times review comes with audio interviews.]

By the way Wikipedia says, "The term playwright is not a variant spelling of playwrite, but something quite distinct: the word wright is an archaic English term for a craftsman or builder (as in a wheelwright or cartwright)."

Accused Syrian Community Rabbi Saul Kassin is a Book Author

We've found references to a book written by accused Syrian Community Rabbi Saul Kassin.

It's title is, The Light of the Law: Guideposts to Biblical Commandments and Their Rabbinic Commentaries, and it was published by Shengold Publishers in 1980 or Schreiber Publishing Incorporated in 1981.

One of the subjects it is associated with in the cataloging information is, "Commandments, Six hundred and thirteen."

The book is cited in the bibliography of a course by Dr. David W. Gill for REGENT COLLEGE Distance Education whose title was, "APPL/INDS 559: BUSINESS ETHICS: ENGAGING MORAL ISSUES IN THE MARKETPLACE."

Our Talmudic analysis: In light of recent arrests, Dr. Gill may wish to revise his syllabus.

Also the cataloging category for Rabbi Kassin's book may need to be amended to read, "Commandments, Six hundred and twelve."

Bergen Record: Why is it so easy to use Shuls and Yeshivas to Launder Money?

Harvy Lipman of the Record explains why lack of regulation over religious non-profits makes it so easy for shuls and yeshivas to launder money and provide phony IRS receipts.

Law shields religious charities from scrutiny
BY HARVY LIPMAN

One of the key elements of the money-laundering case brought Thursday against several leaders of the Syrian Jewish communities in Brooklyn and Deal was the use of charities linked to religious groups as conduits.

According to the federal complaints, checks made out to the charities were sent to Israel, where the funds were run through other entities and returned to money-laundering clients for a fee.

This is not the first time federal authorities have uncovered a scam utilizing religious charities to launder money. In fact, less than two weeks ago, Naftali Tzi Weisz, the grand rabbi of a Brooklyn-based Hasidic sect, agreed to plead guilty to one charge in a case involving charities connected to his group. That scheme involved steering donations to the charities, which would transfer the money through various Israeli banks and organizations and return 80 percent to 95 percent of the funds to the donors.

Thus, a donor who gave $100,000 would get a tax deduction for the full amount, even though only $5,000 to $20,000 of the money went to charity.

Several experts in non-profit law said that federal tax law significantly hampers regulators’ ability to ferret out abuse by charities linked to religious groups. Under the Internal Revenue Code, such organizations are not required to file tax returns as most non-profits are. Of the half-dozen charities named in Thursday’s federal complaints, only one has filed federal tax returns.

“There’s no regular flow of information the way there is with every other form of taxpayer, whether an individual or a tax-exempt entity,” said Marc Owens, a Washington lawyer and former head of the Exempt Organizations Division of the Internal Revenue Service.

“Because of that lack of information, the IRS has a difficult time determining if something irregular is going on. There are no documents to look at.”

Oversight ‘difficult’

Daniel Kurtz, a Manhattan lawyer and former director of the New York Attorney General’s Charities Bureau, said religious groups’ exemption from filing tax returns also hamstrings state regulatory agencies, which rely on the information in the returns.
“Obviously, it makes it tremendously difficult to exercise any level of oversight,” Kurtz said.

He noted that some restraints on government review of religious groups’ activities are warranted under the First Amendment’s guarantee of religious freedom.

“There may be some things that would look unusual at another organization, like spending a lot of money for vestments to clothe a priest, that are none of the state’s business,” Kurtz said. “But the total lack of oversight is troubling.”

Owens said Congress has recently added a section — restricting audits — to the tax code, even further limiting oversight of religious groups.

“There’s a requirement that a high official of the IRS determine that there is a reasonable probability an audit will find information that endangers the church’s tax-exempt status before an audit can be conducted,” he said.

That’s quite different from other non-profits, which can be audited if an IRS examiner sees any reason to suspect a problem.

“You can’t start an audit of a church because an agent drove by a church and saw something suspicious, like a big car parked in the driveway,” Owens said.

Complicating matters, the tax code doesn’t define what constitutes a church.

“There are no regulations, but the issue has been addressed by a series of court decisions over the years,” Owens said. The IRS has developed a set of 14 criteria to decide whether an organization constitutes a religious group that have been endorsed to varying degrees in subsequent court rulings.

Chief among them are whether the organization has a congregation, holds regular services, ordains ministers based on a set of prescribed studies and has its own place or places of worship.

“An organization does not need to meet all of them, but it needs to meet a goodly number,” Owens said.

Is Rabbi Saul Kassin the Godfather of the Brooklyn Syrian Jews?

Rabbi Saul Kassin leaves federal court after being charged with money laundering

Rabbi Saul Kassin, the chief rabbi of Sharee Zion in Brooklyn, leaves court after being charged with money laundering of proceeds derived from criminal activity. Kassin was one of 44 people charged in a corruption probe by the FBI. (Video by A.J. Chavar, Michael Monday, and John Munson/The Star-Ledger)

There are disputes out there about what to call the expected new HBO series based on the crooked New Jersey politicians and rabbis who were arrested yesterday by the FBI:

The Syrianos or The Sephardos?

Either way this is a true tragedy, not a cable TV series.

We wonder about the arrested Brooklyn Syrian chief rabbi, Saul Kassin. We make a fair assumption that the FBI does not arrest a high profile religious leader like that unless they have a whole Talmud of evidence against him. The FBI does not want to mess up that kind of arrest.

So then we have to wonder how and why does a saintly religious leader become so corrupted and get himself arrested by the FBI? The answer is - he does not wake up one morning and say, "No more Mr. Nice Guy."

Corruption creeps up on a person like that, one step at a time. And some of you say, let's give him the benefit of every doubt. He may have been cleverly fooled by those around him - and he may never have known about what was going on. We say okay, that's your right. Think that if it makes you feel better.

The actual road to corruption is not a slippery slope. It is a rocky path. First step, nobody says anything. Years go by. Times get tough. Second step, climbing down gets easier. Still nobody is the wiser. And the community benefits, doesn't it? Well, not right now.

Sarina Roffé wrote this about the Kassin ancestry:

The name Kassin is traced to a long line of rabbinical scholars, as well as to the French wine merchant and Jewish community leader Fedia Jacob Joseph Cassin and French jurist and statesman Rene Samuel Cassin, winner of the 1968 Nobel Peace Prize. The name can be spelled a number of ways, including Cassin, Kassin and Katzen.

The Kassins have nearly five centuries of rabbinical and Torah scholars behind them. Indeed, they fulfill the meaning of their ancestral name, Cassin. The Hebrew term Cassin means head of the community. The biblical word refers to captain or judge and occurs often in the Tanach. Kassin pre-dates the 1492 expulsion of the Jews from Spain, indicating the family held positions in Spain as judges and leaders for hundreds of years. The name Kassin was also recorded as a Jewish surname in Vauclause, France in the 14th Century. The Kassin family spans over 500 years of unbroken scholarship and leadership, compared to great Jewish dynasties in Eastern Europe.

Their story is traced to 16th Century Spain, where, according to original Hebrew records translated by Rabbi Shaul J. Kassin in his 1980 book, The Light of the Law, his ancestor Señor Shlomo Kassin lived in 1540.

As a wealthy Spanish merchant, Señor Shlomo Kassin fled Spanish persecution for the safe haven of Aleppo, Syria in 1540 where he soon became head of the Jewish community there. In Aleppo, Señor Shlomo devoted his energy to Torah study and to good works.

Times: Syrian Jewish Rabbi Saul Kassin Arrest by FBI Shakes His Community and Us Too

The arrest of a saintly looking man, a rabbi, their leader, a man who instructs his community on what is kosher and what is treif, has shaken the Syrian Jewish community, according to the Times.

It has shaken us too. We have sat reading the news accounts and we cried.

This after all, appears to be the greatest imaginable betrayal of trust by a religious leader that we have witnessed in our memories.

You cannot stand before your flock and purport to tell them what God wants them to do to be good and moral - in this case it was notably to promulgate an edict of who God wants them to marry - and in your own life tolerate and foster corruption and immorality.

Hypocrisy is not a strong enough term to describe this behavior.

The common internal term for it in the community of Jews is "chillul hashem" - desecration of the Lord. But that's just an ejaculative - not a descriptive. The Lord is not desecrated by the acts of hooligans, no matter what are their titles, hairstyles or undergarments.

We left the door unlocked for our ostensible mentors and now they have walked away with our silverware.

This is a desecration of a communal trust - a spouse who has cheated - a business partner who has stolen - a best friend from childhood who has spread a vicious rumor about you.

This is a father who has abused his children - a husband who has beaten his wife - it is all the worst things you can imagine in human relations - magnified by that charter that we call "religion" that we have agreed to abide by because we believe in a thing called "trust."

Read it and weep for that dear friend called trust has died.

Syrian Sephardic Communities Shaken by Charges Against a Leading Rabbi
By PAUL VITELLO

The young receive free educations and the old get free geriatric care. Family businesses connect relatives in a web of interdependence to the furthest reaches of kinship. Wedding receptions with 1,000 guests are common. A Friday night Sabbath dinner with 40 people is the norm.

And that enveloping tradition among the Syrian Jewish communities of Brooklyn and New Jersey seemed to redouble the shock and outrage among their members Thursday after the arrests of five Sephardic rabbis in a New Jersey corruption investigation.

“Shock and disbelief — my cellphone, my office phone — they’re ringing off the hook” said Assemblyman Dov Hikind of Brooklyn, who represents an Orthodox Jewish community adjacent to the southern Brooklyn neighborhoods where about 75,000 Sephardic Jews live. “People do not believe it.”

In a criminal complaint, the F.B.I. said the rabbis used their congregations’ charitable organizations to launder about $3 million — passing what they were told was a donor’s ill-gotten gains through their charities’ bank accounts, and then returning the money to the donor in exchange for a cut of 5 to 10 percent.

The donor turned out to be an apparent F.B.I. informer, Solomon Dwek, who, like the rabbis, is a Sephardic Jew of Syrian descent.

One of the five rabbis, Saul J. Kassin, 87, a slight, soft-spoken man who has written several books on Jewish law, leads the largest of about 50 Sephardic synagogues in the United States, Shaare Zion in Brooklyn. He is considered the leading cleric of the national community.

The congregation was founded by his father, Rabbi Jacob S. Kassin, who was known from 1932 until his death in 1994 as the chief rabbi of Brooklyn’s Syrian Sephardic Jews.

David G. Greenfield, executive vice president of the Sephardic Community Federation, a group representing the approximately 100,000 Sephardim in Brooklyn, Manhattan and New Jersey, said in a statement, “The community is shocked and saddened by these allegations, which go against every value and teaching the community holds dear.”

He added, “If over time these allegations are proven, we must remember that these are the isolated actions of a few individuals.”

Sephardic Jews trace their ancestry to Spain and various parts of North Africa and the Middle East, as distinct from the Ashkenazic Jews from Eastern Europe. They include Moroccans, Turks, Iranians and Iraqis. But most belong to families that emigrated to the United States from the Middle East, especially Syria, because of anti-Jewish attacks there after the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948.

Unique among groups within Judaism, Sephardic leaders have tried mightily to strike a difficult balance between preservation of identity and participation in the American entrepreneurial dream, said Prof. Aviva Ben-Ur of the University of Massachusetts, author of “Sephardic Jews in America: A Diasporic History.”

In 1935, Rabbi Kassin’s father issued an edict forbidding both marriage outside the faith and marriage to Jewish converts, she said. At the same time, Sephardim, unlike the ultra-Orthodox who live at a remove from American society, attend public schools in the lower grades and are encouraged to succeed in business.

Among the successful businesses founded by Sephardic Jews are Jordache and Bonjour, the jeans makers, and the Conway and Century 21 department stores.

Phone messages left at Rabbi Kassin’s home were not returned. At the home of his son, Jacob S. Kassin, a woman answered and said the son would not be available to comment.

David Ben-Hooren, a member of the congregation and publisher of The Jewish Voice and Opinion, a conservative monthly newspaper, spoke to reporters at the synagogue, on Ocean Parkway.

"When the facts come out, we’ll find out that those rabbis never broke the law,” he said. “I believe they’re going to be vindicated. Knowing those rabbis for many years, I know that they devoted their lives to charity, and there’s no way that they benefited from any of those activities."

FBI Raids Deal Synagogue and Yeshiva and Arrests Syrian Jews and Rabbi Saul Kassin for Money Laundering

There is a special place in hell for crooks who use public elected offices, synagogues and yeshivas to carry out their racketeering.

The shocking coverage at nj.com includes photographs of the FBI taking evidence out of the Deal Yeshiva and of people screaming at photographers outside "Rabbi Jacob Kassin's house" in Deal NJ.

According to records, Rabbi Jacob Kassin died in 1994, so we don't know why this house is identified that way - though the picture above is of a guy in a nice golf shirt identified as one, "Jakie Kassin, son of the current SY chief rabbi, by the pool at his home in Deal, N.J." from the Times profile in 2007 by Zev Chafets of the SY community.

Updates: The Times reports these details:

Weysan Dun, the special agent in charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Newark office, said the rabbis arrested — including the grand rabbi of the Syrian Jewish community in the United States, Saul Kassin of Brooklyn — were part of a vast money-laundering conspiracy with tentacles in Israel and Switzerland. Another person, Levy-Izhak Rosenbaum of Brooklyn, was accused of enticing vulnerable people to give up a kidney for $10,000 and then selling the organ for $160,000...

The rabbis arrested were from enclaves of Syrian Jews in Brooklyn and in Deal and Elberon, communities along the Jersey Shore in Monmouth County.

The WSJ reports more about the informant and the rabbis:

The key to the investigation was an Orthodox Jewish real-estate developer, according to a person familiar with the matter. Solomon Dwek was arrested on bank-fraud charges in 2006 and was forced to seek bankruptcy protection for himself and his companies, which owned about 300 residential and commercial properties. Mr. Dwek, 36 years old, a religious-school head and philanthropist from Ocean Township, was charged with defrauding PNC Bank out of $25 million. Mr. Dwek remained free on a $10 million bond. A lawyer for Mr. Dwek couldn't be reached for comment.

To ensnare most of the defendants, the Federal Bureau of Investigation used Mr. Dwek to attempt to bribe numerous public officials in New Jersey, including Hoboken and Jersey City, according to a person familiar with the matter. The probe roped in several other real-estate developers who also wanted to bribe officials. The criminal complaints unsealed Thursday referenced an unnamed "cooperating witness" who represented himself as a real-estate developer seeking to pay bribes. A person familiar with the matter said Mr. Dwek is the witness.

"The politicians willingly put themselves up for sale," Mr. Marra said in an afternoon news conference. "They existed in an ethics-free zone."

Mr. Cammarano, who became Hoboken mayor on July 1, allegedly agreed to take $10,000 in bribes from the cooperating witness in exchange for supporting the developer's future plans in Hoboken. The alleged bribes occurred during Mr. Cammarano's mayoral campaign earlier this year, according to the FBI's complaint, which also charged an associate of Mr. Cammarano, who allegedly served as a middleman and took cash for him.

Mr. Dwek was also the key to the money-laundering probe, according to the person familiar with the matter. Under the FBI's direction, Mr. Dwek represented himself as someone who engaged in illegal businesses and schemes including bank fraud, trafficking in counterfeit goods and concealing assets and monies in connection with bankruptcy proceedings.

Among the charged rabbis for money laundering and other fraudulent acts are Edmond Nahum, the principal rabbi of Deal Synagogue in the shore community of Deal, in Monmouth County; Eliahu Ben Haim, principal rabbi of Congregation Ohel Yaacob, also in Deal; Saul Kassin, a rabbi Shaare Zion Congregation in the New York borough of Brooklyn; Mordchai Fish, a rabbi at a Brooklyn synagogue, Congregation Sheves Achim; and his brother, Lavel Schwartz, also a rabbi.

The Star Ledger site provides numerous photos of the arrested politicians and the list of those arrested and this story:

N.J. officials, N.Y. rabbis caught in federal money laundering, corruption sweep

NEWARK -- A New Jersey assemblyman and the mayors of Hoboken and Secaucus were among public officials arrested this morning by FBI agents in an international money laundering and corruption probe that includes rabbis in the Syrian Jewish communities of Deal and Brooklyn.

Assemblyman Daniel Van Pelt (R-Ocean), Hoboken Mayor Peter Cammarano, Secaucus Mayor Dennis Elwell and Jersey City Council President Mariano Vega are among those already brought to the FBI building in Newark. Jersey City Deputy Mayor Leona Beldini has also been arrested.

Mayor Peter Cammarano is one of many people brought to FBI Headquarters in Newark after an being taken into custody early this morning.

A total of 30 people have been taken into custody, officials said.

The arrests are the result of a two-year FBI and IRS probe that began with an investigation of money transfers by members of the Syrian enclaves in Deal and Brooklyn. Those arrested this morning include key religious leaders in the tight-knit, wealthy communities.

The federal investigation then expanded into a public corruption probe.

No indictments have been released, though court appearances are expected later today in U.S. District Court in Newark. Nearly 20 people have already been led into the FBI building in Newark as the sweep continues to unfold in two states.

Agents also raided religious institutions to make arrests and collect information.

The Monmouth County Prosecutor's Office and the IRS took out at least three boxes from the Deal Yeshiva, as students were arriving at school. The Deal Yeshiva, on the corner of Brighton and Norwood avenues, is a prestigious religious school in town.

Authorities also searched the Ohel Yaacob synagogue on Ocean Avenue in Deal and removed several boxes.

Assemblyman Van Pelt, 44, is also the mayor of Ocean Township, a post he has held since 1988. He holds degrees from The College of New Jersey (Criminal Justice) and Regent University (Public Policy and Government).

Cammarano, 32, a Democrat, was elected mayor of Hoboken in June. He was elected Hoboken City Councilman-at-Large in 2005. According to his campaign website, Cammarano is an attorney at the law firm of Genova, Burns, & Vernoia, which has offices in New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania.

Cammarano previously worked as a law clerk for Superior Court Judge Kevin Callahan in Jersey City. He is a member of the New Jersey State Bar Association and the Association of the Federal Bar of the State of New Jersey, as well as the bar associations for Hudson, Bergen and Essex Counties. He has also worked as an adjunct professor at Montclair State University.

Elwell, 64, has served for more than two decades as mayor and a member of the town council. Elwell and his council slate recently won victory in their contested Democratic June primary contests.

Elwell is the president of a family-owned trucking company. He is a former Secaucus Board of Education member and a decorated Vietnam combat veteran.