Ex-Con Jack Abramoff Works at Tov Pizza
On June 8, Jack Abramoff, the former bigshot lobbyist convicted of fraud, tax evasion, conspiracy and corruption, was released from prison and – economy be damned – he already has a job. Thanks to the good graces of Baltimore restaurant owner Ron Rosenbluth, Abramoff, an Orthodox Jew, will be working at a Tov Pizza 26-year-old kosher pizzeria.
“I think people get a second chance,” Rosenbluth told The Baltimore Sun. “If they do their time, they deserve a chance.”
In 2006, after a widely-publicized trial, Abramoff was sentenced to just under six years in federal prison, the minimum sentence for his crimes. In 2008, an additional four-year sentence was added, which he was serving concurrently. Abramoff’s early release, after just three and half years, was most likely a result of his cooperation with Justice Department investigators, which led to several convictions for elected officials including a Congressman and several Capitol Hill aides.
The Baltimore Jewish Times reported that Abramoff – who once owned and operated two popular kosher restaurants in Washington, D.C. – had already begun his new gig.
According to the Times, restaurant owner Rosenbluth was happy with his recent hiring decision. “We’re all Jews, we’re all on the same team,” he said.
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
