Thomas MacMillan File Photo.
Less than a month after a jury let him walk free, Rabbi David Avigdor learned he’ll have to face another one.
Tom Carson, spokesman for the Connecticut U.S. attorney’s office, said on Friday that the government has decided to retry Avigdor (pictured) for his alleged role in a multimillion-dollar mortgage fraud scheme. Jury selection is set for November.
Avigdor, a lawyer and New Haven’s longest-serving pulpit rabbi, was the only one of five defendants to escape a guilty sentence last month at a federal trial in Hartford. Avigdor walked after a 12-member jury failed to find consensus on the question of his guilt.
Avigdor and his fellow defendants were charged with taking part in a 15-member conspiracy that swindled government and private lenders out of millions and helped plunge struggling city neighborhoods further into foreclosure woes. Many of the conspirators have pleaded guilty; one wore a wire to help the feds bag the rest.
Here’s how the scheme worked: The conspirators paid an assessor to fraudulently assess homes for more than their actual worth. “Straw buyers” were then hired to buy the homes with mortgages they took out using trumped-up documents showing falsified employment and income. While the mortgage amounts were for the inflated assessment value, the conspirators would then purchase the homes for their real, lesser price, and pocket the difference. The straw buyers would walk away and let the homes fall into foreclosure.
The conspirators ran this scam over and over in New Haven and surrounding towns, leaving a trail of blighted homes in their wake.
Avigdor was charged with acting as the settlement agent of many of the deals. Prosecutors said he used his special attorney’s bank account to wire the proceeds of the scams to the account of a fake construction company, where the money was later paid out to the conspirators. His wife, a real estate agent, collected a closing fee in at least one instance.
Avigdor, who took the stand to defend himself, said he did nothing wrong, did not know he was taking part in anything illegal, and was merely following the instructions of his paying clients.
He and his lawyer, Howard Lawrence, will make that argument again in November, when the government plans to retry the case against him. The same judge, Alvin Thompson, will preside.
Lawrence said the retrial shouldn’t be happening.
Attorney Lawrence (right) on the last day of April’s trial.
“The problem that I have is that a retrial after a hung jury is fundamentally unfair,” said Lawrence on Friday. “The government has now had a complete dress rehearsal. They know what all the defenses are. They know what they have to do to backfill and add in extra arguments and extra witnesses.”
“I don’t think Avigdor can get a fair trial a second time around,” he said. That’s partly because, Lawrence said, he thinks there was juror misconduct in the form of a comment on this Independent story. A person claiming to be a former juror wrote in to say the jury was split 10 to one, with one undecided, on Avigdor’s guilt. The juror should not have publicly disclosed such details of the deliberation, Lawrence said.
In the weeks that come, Lawrence will be making formal motions arguing these points, he said.
Meanwhile, Avigdor is rocked by the news of the retrial, Lawrence said. “He’s extraordinarily upset. He maintains and stands by his innocence, and eventually he’ll be vindicated.”
The U.S. attorney’s office declined to comment.
Previous coverage of this case:
• 4 Convicted In Fraud Scam; Mistrial For Rabbi
• Jury Can’t Agree In Scam Trial
• Avigdor’s Final Plea: Follow The Money
• Claire: The Rabbi Is Kosher
• Wednesday The Rabbi Took The Stand
• Straw Buyer Lured Into A Wild Ride
• After Big Fish Plead, Smaller Fry Point Fingers
• Slum-Photo Doctor Makes A Call
• What Happened At Goodfellas Didn’t Stay At Goodfellas
• Fraud Trial Opens With Oz-Like Yarn
• “Partying” MySpacer Lined Up Scam Homebuyers
• “Straw Buyer” Pleads Guilty
• Neighbors, Taxpayers Left With The Tab
• FBI Arrests Police Commissioner, Slumlord, Rabbi
• One Last Gambit Falls Short
• Was He In “Custody”?
• Is Slum Landlord Helping The FBI?
• Feds Snag Poverty Landlord
• Police Commissioner Pleads