Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Herbert Friedman Gets 4 Months in Met Council Fraud Scheme

Herbert Friedman, the former chief financial officer of the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty, pleaded guilty today to grand larceny and conspiracy charges for his role in the $9 million kickback scheme that has rocked the organization since last August.

Friedman, 80, admitted to illegally receiving around $250,000 from the scheme between the early 1990s and 2009. In exchange for the guilty plea, he must pay $775,000 in restitution and will be sentenced to four months in jail. If he fails to pay the restitution, he could face up to 4-1/2 years in state prison.

“Herb Friedman abused his position of trust to help steal millions of dollars from a taxpayer-funded charitable organization–one dedicated to serving some of New York City’s poorest and most vulnerable residents,” said New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman in announcing the guilty plea with State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli. “As this case has shown as much as any other, those who rip off taxpayers and charitable organizations will be prosecuted and punished.”

Friedman is the third Met Council official to plead guilty in the high profile case.

William Rapfogel, the former Met Council executive director, and his predecessor, David Cohen, entered guilty pleas in April. Under their leadership, the Met Council paid inflated premiums to its insurer, Century Coverage Corporation, which then sent cash kickbacks to Cohen, Friedman, and later Rapfogel, who joined the scheme shortly after he took the reins of the organization in 1993.

Joseph Ross, the owner of Century Coverage Corporation, admitted his role in the scheme and pleaded guilty in December 2013.

The Met Council provides food, financial assistance, housing, and a range of other services to poor and elderly residents of New York City.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

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.

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 polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.