"Thou shalt not steal" is one of the Ten Commandments of the Torah (and by extension the Old Testament), which are widely understood as moral imperatives by legal scholars, Jewish scholars, Catholic scholars, and Post-Reformation scholars.
LAKEWOOD, New Jersey -- Seven married couples from the same New Jersey shore town, including a rabbi and his wife, now face charges that they misrepresented their income to get a combined $2 million in public welfare benefits to which they were not entitled.
Three couples were arrested late Tuesday in Lakewood after four couples, including Rabbi Zalmen Sorotzkin, of Congregation Lutzk, and his wife, Tzipporah, were arrested Monday.
The three couples were identified as Yitzchock and Sora Kanarek; Chaim and Liatt Ehrman; and William and Faigy Friedman.
Prosecutors say the three couples misrepresented their income and then collected more than $674,000 in benefits. They say the couples failed to disclose income from numerous sources on applications for Medicaid, housing, Social Security and food assistance benefits.
The state and federal investigation centers on Lakewood, which is home to a large and growing ultra-Orthodox Jewish community.
In the arrests Monday, the Sorotzkins were charged with collecting more than $338,000 in benefits prosecutors say they weren't entitled to. Their attorney said they will plead not guilty.
They were charged in state court along with Mordechai and Jocheved Breskin, who prosecutors said collected more than $585,000 in benefits they weren't entitled to.
Zalmen Sorotzkin's brother, Mordechai, and his wife, Rachel, were one of two couples charged in separate federal complaints with conspiring to fraudulently obtain Medicaid benefits.
They made more than $1 million in 2012 and in 2013, the complaint alleges, but still received more than $96,000 in Medicaid benefits, including $22,000 to pay for medical expenses when their sixth child was born in November 2013.
"Everything is going to work out and all will be vindicated," said Rachel Sorotzkin's attorney, Fred Zemel.
According to a federal complaint, Yocheved and Shimon Nussbaum hid their income by creating companies that were run by relatives on paper but that the couple actually controlled. They made a total of $1.8 million in 2013, but still received Medicaid, food benefits and housing assistance into 2014, prosecutors said.