Staten Island Jewish Cemetery Head Pleads Guilty To Embezzling $1.9M
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
The one-time acting president of a nonprofit Staten Island Jewish cemetery pleaded guilty to embezzling nearly $2 million.
Timothy Griffin, formerly the outside counsel of United Hebrew Cemetery, will be sentenced to 3 to 9 years in prison, New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced Wednesday.
Griffin became acting president after its previous president and his wife, Arthur and Ilana Friedman of Brooklyn, were found guilty of embezzling approximately $850,000.
While serving as acting president, Griffin made six unauthorized wire transfers from the cemetery’s account to his own attorney escrow account, totaling $1.9 million. Griffin stole the money to cover up his theft of more than $1 million from his legal clients between April 2009 and February 2014, according to a news release issued by Schneiderman.
In 2013, Ilana Friedman was convicted of grand larceny charges and sentenced to five years of probation. She and her husband were banned from working in the funeral or cemetery industry in New York State and paid $1.1 million in restitution.
Arthur Friedman, who has served as the cemetery’s superintendent, president and board chairman, was not criminally charged, but court papers said he “failed to exercise proper oversight” and “failed to implement adequate internal controls.”
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover. All donations are being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
