One of the most prolific fund-raisers for the mayoral
campaign of William C. Thompson Jr. is an admitted swindler who once cheated a
tiny, economically depressed Wisconsin village out of $250,000 and later
escaped from a federal prison.
He is also a polarizing figure in the Satmar sect of Hasidic
Jews and was an instigator in a bitter, long-running dynastic struggle between
two Satmar factions — even once provoking a brawl in a Brooklyn synagogue.
The fund-raiser, Jacob Brach, 55, gathered more than $30,000
in donations for the Thompson campaign this year, mainly from Satmar Hasidim
and their business associates. He is the third largest bundler for Mr.
Thompson, who has been raising money feverishly and making a strong push for
Orthodox Jewish support in Brooklyn as he makes his second run for mayor.
All but one of the 180 contributions Mr. Brach collected
were for $175 — the maximum that the city will match under its voluntary
campaign financing program.
Mr. Thompson has a personal connection to Mr. Brach: his
father, William C. Thompson Sr., a former judge, was a lawyer for Mr. Brach’s
Satmar faction. The elder Mr. Thompson appeared in court, as part of the
faction’s legal team, on a day in 2001 when Mr. Brach was questioned about his
behavior and his criminal record.
Mr. Brach has not aided Mr. Thompson exclusively. In early
2012 he bundled at least $8,000 in donations for the mayoral campaign of Bill
de Blasio, records indicate.
And he is not the only Satmar raising money in the mayor’s
race, or the busiest. Herman Friedman, a 34-year-old Brooklyn entrepreneur,
collected more than $80,000 for the campaign of Christine C. Quinn, the City
Council speaker. Through a spokesman, Mr. Friedman said he advocated for
various issues in Brooklyn but declined to provide details or be interviewed.
Mr. Brach, also known as Yossi Brach, came to the attention
of law enforcement officials as early as 1988, when he was accused by Union
Carbide of Canada and another Canadian company of bilking them out of more than
$300,000 by offering them patent rights to a disposable toilet seat cover.
Two years later, Mr. Brach, who then lived in Kiryas Joel in
Orange County, posed as the millionaire owner of a knitting mill and got
officials in Randolph, Wis. (which had a population of 1,600), to lend him
$250,000 to relocate there. Tommy Thompson, the governor at the time, appeared
with Mr. Brach at a news conference saying the move would create hundreds of
jobs.
READ MORE AT: NY Times
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