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The Jersey Sting: A True Story of Crooked Pols, Money-Laundering Rabbis, Black Market Kidneys, and the Informant Who Brought It All Down Hardcover – March 15, 2011

by Ted Sherman (Author), Josh Margolin (Author)

35 customer reviews

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In the summer of 2009 the blog Gawker stated “Everybody in New Jersey Was Arrested Yesterday.” Now for the first time, the real story behind the biggest corruption bust in New Jersey’s notoriously corrupt history
Among the forty-four people arrested in July 2009 were three mayors, five Orthodox rabbis, two state legislators, and the flamboyant deputy mayor of Jersey City, Leona Beldini, once a stripper using the stage name “Hope Diamond.” At the center of it all was a dubious character named Solomon Dwek, who perpetrated a $50 million Ponzi scheme before copping a plea and wearing a wire as a secret FBI undercover informant, setting up friends, partners, rabbis, and dozens of politicians. Mr. Dwek played his role like an extra in a mob movie. On surveillance tape, he repeatedly referred to his fraudulent “schnookie deals,” which is Yiddish for, well, schnook.

Full of impossible-to-make-up detail and fresh revelations from the continuing trials and investigations, this book—the inside, untold account of a federal sting operation that moves from the streets of Brooklyn to the diners of Jersey City, and all the way to Israel—is a wonderful tour de force of investigative journalism by the reporting team that broke this amazing story.

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Product Details

Hardcover: 400 pages
Publisher: St. Martin's Press (March 15, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0312654170
ISBN-13: 978-0312654177
Product Dimensions: 6.5 x 1.4 x 9.5 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (35 customer reviews)
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #634,182 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #118 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > True Crime > White Collar Crime
- #223 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > True Crime > Hoaxes & Deceptions
- #911 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > True Crime > Organized Crime

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Customer Reviews

4.1 out of 5 stars

5 star		57%
4 star		11%
3 star		20%
2 star		6%
1 star		6%

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful

Fascinating story embedded in boring book

By Doctor.Generosity TOP 1000 REVIEWERVINE VOICE on July 23, 2011

Format: Kindle Edition Verified Purchase

The fascinating part of the story is a circle of corruption whose focal point was a member of the Syrian Orthodox Jewish community in New Jersey, working with the FBI in order to lighten his own sentence for bank fraud. It is a sad story how even prominent rabbis were engaged in money laundering, illegal organ smuggling, and more. Guess they missed the day at yeshiva when the Eighth Commandment was discussed. Solomon Drek gets the award for pathological sleazeball of the century. He clearly relished all the cloak-and-dagger of entrapping all his supposed friends and counterparties. Recently he was re-arrested for a minor crime related to a rental car, causing him to return to prison, wasting all his hard work as a rat. Nobody likes Solomon Drek.

And these are supposedly observant religious people. Same can be said of Catholic priests. What can we say of those who profess to live a life in accord with divine law yet commit crimes of greed and perversion? Someday I would like to see each and every one of the world religions and sub divisions, spiritual movements, sects and belief systems - get a report card based on how its adherents actually behave, using some objective criteria such as criminal conviction records. Would be an interesting statistic and say something about walking the talk.

The less interesting part of this book is a minutely detailed catalog of every small time crooked politician in New Jersey. The authors are newspaper reporters and here they have simply dumped out all the data they know about each and every pol. All of it. For anyone not equally obsessed, there is way too much exhaustive detail. There is no discussion of why NJ came to have such a culture of corruption. There is no discussion of the Syrian Jewish community. There is no discussion, period. All trees, no forest. And whereas the key event is the arrest of 44 people on one day, it takes 292 pages of a 386 page book to get to that event. Don't books have editors anymore?

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13 of 16 people found the following review helpful

Excellent writing, rich detail, and an unbelievable story = great read

By AvidNonFictionReader on March 18, 2011

Format: Hardcover

Sherman and Margolin are established and well respected investigative journalists who demonstrate in this book that they aren't just reporters, they're writers. They clearly put their considerable skills to use assimilating all the facts, reviewing the tapes and records, conducting interviews and translating all of that into a story that is rich in detail and truly hard to put down. They take us behind the scenes and into the heads of the perpetrators, victims, investigators and prosecutors to connect the dots and develop character portraits that makes it easy for readers to "visualize" the story as if it were a movie. This story is truly one from the "truth is stranger, and more unbelievable, than fiction" files. A great read. Let's hope they're not done.

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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful

Can't Put it Down

By Joseph on March 28, 2011

Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase

Once I began reading this book it was difficult to put it down. If you're a Jersey native and politically involved on any level this is a must read. From the major political players to the building inspectors, Jersey's political characters and their shenanigans make this book a lively and at times comedic read.

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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful

Excellent story ,well written

By Sharon Levenson on April 29, 2011

Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase

"The Jersey Sting" tells the story of a wide-ranging statewide corruption sting involving crooked politicians,money-laundering Rabbis,even an organ selling scam,all brought about by a rotund con-artist who was himself operating a"ponzi"scheme and was caught by the feds,who put him undercover....While there are no sensational murders or slam-bang car chases here to capture the inattentive minds of the sort of audience that reads comic books and gets its news in two sentence blurbs on the internet for those wanting to read in detail how one of the most massive non-organized crime stings went down this book is a goldmine..
....it is also rather disturbing,and not just because so many mayors council-persons,political fixers and clergy were involved,but the detestable reaction amongst the syrian Orthodox jewish community to revealations that many of its revered religious leaders were in fact little more than hypocrite rogues hiding behind thier holy books...The book makes it quite clear that the sort of million dollar money laundering described was a well known and well kept secret among the community,and that far from being pleased that the bad apples among them were exposed the community instead vented its rage against the"rat" whose undercover work made the whole sting possible..Solomon Dwek,the ponzi scheme artist whom the feds used to get both the crooked pols and the crooked rabbis has been vilified by his own orthodox religious community,apparently on the absurd and dangerous notion that being a crook,being a religios leader who is a crook is somehow better than being the one who exposes this sort of activity ...Loyalty to the tribe is,in thier absurd way of thinking more important that following the laws of the land,or exposing the rogues to justice.
Many of the crooked pols and the religious leaders caught confessed and have been sentenced...Most of those who chose a trial were convicted...
All in all an excellent read.

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9 of 12 people found the following review helpful

Absorbing read

By Avidreader on March 17, 2011

Format: Hardcover

The Jersey Sting is a difficult to believe true story. Although it is written by a pair of newspaper reporters, it reads like a novel by Elmore Leonard channeling Robert Ludlum with some George Carlin wry comedy thrown in. It is absolutely fascinating to follow how Dwek was able to con supposedly aware people into giving him money or accepting money from him. The most amusing/amazing story is how he was able to cash a check for $25 million from a non-existent bank account. Think about how difficult it is to cash a $2500 check!

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

Great reader, especially if you are from NJ

Great reader, especially if you are from NJ. You can really relate to the contents of this reader. Even if you are not from NJ, it is a great reader. Price was awesome.

Published 19 days ago by kathleen Melyan

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Long winded, but well researched. For locals only.

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excellent

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Published 10 months ago by Cheryl A. Cerna

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Thank you very much. Apologies for delay in laving feddback

Published 11 months ago by Rajaram

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Published 13 months ago by Roxanne Yannul

Fact not fiction

I first learned about this book on American Greed. The authors commented on various elements of the show. What they said made me want to find out more so I purchased their book. Read more

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Published on July 21, 2013 by MO