The wife of ex-Met Council CEO William Rapfogel has been questioned regarding the hundreds of thousands of dollars that turned up in the couple's homes, reports said on Monday.
Judy Rapfogel, who is chief of staff to Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, hired a lawyer and faced questions in a joint probe by the state comptroller and state attorney general, the Daily News reported. The complaint against Rapfogel filed in August, alleging that he misappropriated millions during his tenure heading the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty, said he turned over more than $400,000 in cash on three occasions to investigators that was hidden in his Lower East Side and upstate homes.
The New York Times noted that Judy Rapfogel's failed 1997 campaign for City Council paid over $8,000 for car insurance to Century Coverage, the same Long Island-based brokerage that has been implicated in the Met Council probe, suspected of receiving overpayments for insurance premums. The excess funds were then either stolen, or funneled to politicians that steer grants and contracts to Met Council, the investigators believe.
The alleged scam may have involved as much as $5 million in charitable and taxpayer dollars. So far, only William Rapfogel has been charged, though reports say his predecessor, Rabbi David Cohen, is also under investigation. Cohen resigned from his job as CEO of Hatzolah, the volunteer ambulance service's coordinating office, earlier this month after reports that he was under investigation.
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