JustASC

In follow-up to the Dwek case, a federal judge refuses a chasidic charity’s efforts to recover assets from a gmach, or fund, that the feds say a Dwek associate used to launder money. The Star-Ledger explains:

The U.S. Attorney’s Office has charged the fund was used to cash $357,500 in checks for Solomon Dwek, a Monmouth County real estate developer who began working for the FBI as an undercover informant after he was charged in a $50 million bank fraud.

According to criminal complaints filed in the case, Moshe Altman, a real estate developer from Monsey, N.Y., had access to the gmach, and cashed Dwek’s checks through the charity’s bank accounts. A gmach, an acronym of Hebrew letters that translates to “acts of kindness,” is essentially a fund in many Orthodox Jewish communities that may be formed for any number of charitable services — from interest-free loans to the lending of bride’s dresses.