Ramapo Town Supervisor Found Guilty Of Fraud Scheme With Jewish Leader
By Josh Nathan-Kazis May 22, 2017
The supervisor of the heavily Jewish town of Ramapo in suburban New York was found guilty of conspiracy, securities fraud and wire fraud, in connection with a scheme to conceal the damage done to the towns finances by the construction of a local baseball stadium.
The town supervisor, Christopher St. Lawrence, faces a potentially heavy prison sentence. He remained in office through his arrest, indictment and trial. He was automatically removed by virtue of his conviction.
Ramapo includes the Orthodox-dominated villages of New Square, Monsey, Airmont and Kaser. It also includes the troubled East Ramapo School district, where Orthodox and non-Jewish residents have struggled for control. St. Lawrence enjoyed the support of the Orthodox communities of Ramapo, and was thought to act in their interests, according to the Journal News, a local paper.
Ramapo was found guilty of lying to investors in the town’s municipal bonds in order to overstate the financial security of the town.
St. Lawrence’s co-defendant, Aaron Troodler, the former executive director of a local development group, pleaded guilty last month.
Contact Josh Nathan-Kazis at nathankazis@forward.com or on Twitter, @joshnathankazis.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
