Trump Commutes Jail Sentence Of Sholom Rubashkin, Kosher Meat Exec
Jailed kosher meat executive Sholom Rubashkin, whose Iowa-based meatpacking firm, Agriprocessors, was the subject of what at the time was the largest immigration raid in U.S. history, will go free following a commutation issued Wednesday evening by President Trump.
Rubashkin’s firm was the subject of a major Forward investigative series in 2006 and 2007. The Forward uncovered poor treatment of workers and animals at the plant.
In 2009, Rubashkin was found guilty of 86 counts of bank fraud and sentenced to 27 years in prison. In the years since, the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic group, of which he is a member, and other Orthodox Jews have campaigned for his freedom.
In a statement, the White House said that the commutation was not a pardon. “It does not vacate Mr. Rubashkin’s conviction, and it leaves in place a term of supervised release and a substantial restitution obligation,” the White House said.
Contact Josh Nathan-Kazis at [email protected] 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