New York City’s Department of Investigation has opened an inquiry into how a well-connected inmate was able to schedule, cater and host a bar mitzvah for his son — with 60 invited guests and live music — inside a jail in Lower Manhattan.
The inmate, Tuvia Stern, a former fugitive who was facing charges that he stole US$1.7 million, held the six-hour kosher-catered party in December in the gymnasium of the Manhattan Detention Complex, apparently with the knowledge of two Correction Department chiefs and the jail’s warden, city correction officials said on Thursday.
Guests of the extraordinary jailhouse bar mitzvah, which featured a band and Yaakov Shwekey, a popular Orthodox singer, were allowed to bring their cellphones into the secure complex and food was served on china with metal forks and knives — all violations of rules prohibiting communication devices and sharp objects that could be used by violent inmates.
The New York Post reported details of the jailhouse party on Thursday. Several city officials on Thursday privately expressed near disbelief that any inmate, regardless of wealth or connections, would be allowed to turn a jail complex into a rollicking banquet hall for six hours.
“You have knives and other metal utensils, and cellphones all over the place,” said one city official, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of angering more senior officials. “Why did they do this?”
Mayor Michael Bloomberg, asked by reporters on Thursday afternoon about the episode, said the party should not have been allowed. Corrections Commissioner Martin Horn declined to comment. A spokeswoman for the Manhattan district attorney’s office declined to say whether the office was investigating if the party, and at least tacit approval for it by senior Correction Department officials, involved any criminal wrongdoing.
Stern, 47, fled the country in 1989 after being released on US$250,000 bail while facing charges, along with his older brother, of stealing US$1.7 million in two financial scams.
He went to Brazil with his wife and five children and was brought back to New York in February last year after losing an extradition fight that began when he was arrested while trying to enter the UK in December 2006.
Stern was convicted in February of first-degree grand larceny and sentenced to two-and-a-half to seven years in prison. In mid-April, he was transferred to a state prison in Woodbourne, New York, State Department of Correctional Services records show.
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