By Pat Savage
Jona Rechnitz has been sentenced to five months in prison and five months home confinement by a federal judge in Manhattan.
The one-time fundraiser for New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio had served as a cooperating witness in municipal-corruption probes.
It was three years ago that Rechnitz pleaded guilty to a count of conspiracy to commit honest-services fraud, “admitting to bribing New York City police, public officials and a union leader on behalf of a hedge fund. Since then, prosecutors say, Mr. Rechnitz has spent hundreds of hours meeting them and federal agents to assist in their investigations,” said the Wall Street Journal. “In federal court in Manhattan on Thursday, U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein handed down the prison sentence plus $10 million in restitution over the objection of both Mr. Rechnitz’s lawyer and federal prosecutors, who had praised Mr. Rechnitz’s cooperation.”
“Rechnitz has been, without exaggeration, one of the single most important and prolific white collar cooperating witnesses in the recent history of the Southern District of New York,” Manhattan prosecutors noted in court documents.
“Judge Hellerstein acknowledged Mr. Rechnitz’s lengthy cooperation, but said he didn’t like the perception that white-collar criminals could escape prison time by cooperating. He said sentencing people to prison was an uncomfortable but necessary part of his job,” added the Journal. “There is a feeling that if you get to the prosecutor early you don’t serve,” the judge said. “I think it’s wrong.”
“At a four-hour hearing Thursday, Rechnitz delivered an emotional apology and asked to be sentenced to time served, saying he felt “tremendous remorse.” “I’ve been a real fraud,” Rechnitz said. “I’ve been a big hypocrite to my religion … I cannot stress, your honor, how ashamed I am,” Politico reported following the verdict.
If nothing else, Rechnitz has made great copy. The Jewish Voice reported recently that he had been seen rubbing elbows with professional celebrity Kim Kardashian. Rechnitz, “a former New York City real-estate investor, now runs the celeb-friendly Jadelle Beverly Hills jewelry business that sponsored the Nov. 20 “Holiday Diamond Showcase” and charity event at the five-star Bel-Air Hotel,” according to the New York Post. Manhattan federal prosecutors have called Rechnitz “one of the single most important and prolific white-collar cooperating witnesses in the recent history of the Southern District of New York” for spilling his guts at three recent corruption trials.”
In December of 2018, the Jewish Voice reported that the New York Post had ran a photo of Rechnitz and his associate Jeremy Reichberg wearing Santa Claus caps while smiling and driving a black convertible. .
“A de Blasio donor who has admitted to bribing cops and politicians told a Manhattan federal jury on Thursday that he threw a lavish party for an alleged co-conspirator in January 2016 — to keep the man from snitching to the feds before he could,” the Post noted, under the headline, “De Blasio donor threw lavish party for pal to keep him from snitching.”
Rechnitz apparently claimed he spent $40,000 on a party for the wedding of Jeremy Reichberg’s daughter “at a time when the feds were closing in on their alleged scheme to grease palms at 1 Police Plaza. Rechnitz said he did it not out of friendship — but out of fear.”
