WATCH: Rubashkin Celebrates Freedom With Wild Party Outside Brooklyn Home
At a late-night gathering outside his Brooklyn home, former Kosher meatpacking executive Sholom Rubashkin celebrated his freedom.
“Nobody could believe in the whole jail nobody could be believe that I walked out,” Rubashkin said, on video posted by the website COLLIVE. “They wanted to bury the guy for who knows how many years and he walked out.”
Rubashkin said that he left all of his personal effects at the prison, aside from his tallis and tefillin. President Donald Trump commuted Rubashkin’s sentence on Wednesday.
Rubashkin was convicted of 86 counts of bank fraud and sentenced to 27 years in prison. In 2006 and 2007, The Forward uncovered mistreatment of workers and animals at the kosher meatpacking plant he operated in Postville, Iowa.
Later, at Chabad headquarters at 770 Eastern Parkway, Rubashkin publicly thanked Trump.
Contact Josh Nathan-Kazis at nathankazis@forward.com or on Twitter, @joshnathankazis.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and the protests on college campuses.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.