Newly released from prison, Mordechai Samet relives the pain, guilt, and gratitude: “Don’t play games. Don’t get to where I did”
“I made a huge mistake,” Reb Mordechai Yitzchak Samet says without fanfare. “And I paid a horrible price.”
He is at home in Kiryas Joel, the chassidic enclave abutting Monroe, New York, following his early release from prison under the prison reform First Step Act that allows for home confinement from age 60. Yet thankful as he is for the shortened term, the toll of the last 18 years is evident on his careworn face. His beard is white, but the light has finally returned to his eyes after sitting behind bars for close to two decades, onceafter a federal court sentenced him to one of the harshest sentences for white-collar crimes — 27 years in prison.
Mordechai Samet, arrested in an FBI roundup in 2001 and charged with running several fraud schemes, is ever grateful to the askanim who were able to secure his early release and have the immigration detainer on him lifted: Samet, an Israeli, is not an American citizen and faced deportation following his prison term, but the lobbying efforts paid off, as the father of 11 was able to return to his family upon his release.
He is full of praise and gratitude to HaKadosh Baruch Hu for finally reuniting him with his family, and he’s already taken advantage of his new lease on life to disseminate messages of emunah on one hand, and to warn the public against getting entangled with the law on the other.
Create a free account to keep reading.
