By: Rebecca Davis
Ex-yeshiva leader Elozer Porges of Central United Talmudic Academy was sentenced last week in Brooklyn federal court to two years of prison for allegedly misusing over $3 million in government funding for a school lunch program.
According to court records, Porges spent money that was provided by the city in order to serve dinner to at risk kids and low-income students at the yeshivas in Williamsburgh; located at 762 Wythe Ave., 25 Franklin St. and 84-88 Sandford St. Instead, Porges provided the government with fraudulent documents that erroneously stated precisely how the funding was being used.
Instead of using the allocated money for dinner, prosecutors say that Porges filled banquet halls with celebrations for adults and teens such as bar mitzvah parties. According to the Post, he even spent $800,000 on chicken.
A 2017 report in the New York Post said that while many of the schools’ kids ate federally subsidized breakfasts, lunches and snacks, they wouldn’t stay for supper, according to the feds.
School is dismissed by 4:45 p.m. and no supper is served, bus drivers at the Wythe Avenue school told The Post in 2017.
Joel Lowy, the former assistant director of the yeshiva, is also facing prosecution for the fraudulent spending of these funds. He is scheduled to be sentenced next month according to the New York Post.
“I just know they are fine people,” another employee at the school said of Porges, 43, and Lowy, 29.
While Porges no longer works at the yeshiva, he has continued to receive paychecks to the tune of $100,000 a year. The school is also planning to repay the government for the misused funds, giving a total of $3.2 million to the United States Department of Agriculture, which oversees the Child and Adult Care Food Program and provides schools with resources to feed children at-rish.
In lieu of jail time, an attorney for Porges argued at the hearing that he should be sentenced to community service in order to be able to care for his wife and 11 children. Assistant US Attorney Erik Paulsen said the argument was nonsense; Porges and his wife have been separated before the entire ordeal went down and he has since been giving her just $250 per week to care for her family.
