H

e always wanted to help his brothers, so he became a rabbi and then a military chaplain.

Today, Jeff Ifrah advocates in a more complex arena, defending Orthodox Jews accused of federal crimes

Jeff Ifrah never set out to be a lawyer — he regards the chain of events that led him to a legal office overlooking the White House with bemused satisfaction, as if to shake his head and wonder at the strange and marvelous Hand of Hashem. On the other hand, when he took an aptitude test in high school and his results indicated “rabbi or lawyer” as the most appropriate choices, he couldn’t figure out the juxtaposition. “Well, they’re both positions of helping people,” the counselor offered, and that has always been his driving motivation.

These days, after stints as a rebbi and army chaplain, Ifrah is still in the helping professions, representing clients (many of them Orthodox Jews) who have been accused of federal crimes. But more than just providing legal counsel, Ifrah is doing his utmost to educate the frum public on how to avoid breaking the law in the first place and thus prevent anguish and chillul Hashem.

Born to Moroccan immigrants who settled in Buffalo, New York, Ifrah was an only son amid five sisters. He attended day school there before being sent to mesivta in Toronto. Applying to Yeshiva University via early admission, he skipped out on the last years of high school. “I’m the only lawyer I know who never got a high school diploma,” he says.

With all the drive of a first-generation American, Ifrah tore through his studies at YU, earning a bachelor’s degree in political science along with a master’s degree in medieval Jewish history (specializing in Spain, where his family has their roots). But he also enrolled in the semichah program, studying Chullin for two years under Rav Michel Katz as well as learning Sephardic halachos in parallel under Chacham Solomon Gaon; meanwhile, he did a stint as a rebbi in the Talmud Torah of the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue. During the summers — his free time, as it were — he attended Cardozo law school.

It was in law school that he met his wife Barbara, the daughter of a Hungarian Vizhnitz Holocaust survivor and a Canadian mother. “We got married one week after the bar exam,” he says. “We took the bar at the Javits Center and ran straight to Boro Park to pick up the bentshers.”

The day after sheva brachos, the new couple went off to Eretz Yisrael, where Barbara found work as a legal intern and Jeff enrolled in the Gruss Kollel. There he received semichah from Rav Mordechai Eliyahu, then  Sephardic chief rabbi, as well as from Rav Moshe Malka and Rav Shalom Messas.

The Ifrahs then returned to Toronto, where Jeff took a position as a fifth- and sixth-grade rebbi in Yeshivat Ohr HaEmet. He began interviewing for Sephardic pulpit positions in cities like Houston, Detroit, Los Angeles, and West Orange. “The problem was that there was never a big enough population for those jobs to be full-time,” he says.

The year was 1993, and following Iraqi provocations, the US was sending troops back to Kuwait and launching missile and bomb strikes. After hearing a speech from the Jewish Welfare Board about the need for military chaplains, Jeff thought that might be an alternate way to help people. “I always had a certain fascination with the military, and all my cousins in Israel were in the army,” he says. He signed up and became a First Lieutenant, stationed at Fort Monmouth.

Again, the lack of a large Jewish population left only part-time work for Jeff’s prodigious energies. Then he became aware he could also work as a lawyer for the military, if he went through basic training and enrolled in the military’s Judge Advocate General School at the University of Virginia. There, fortunately, there was a Chabad House and other Jewish outlets to accommodate Shabbos and kashrus.

He enjoys telling the following anecdote about basic training: One evening, following a grueling three-day outdoor training, the commanding officer announced he was going to reward the troops by taking them out for the best fried chicken in Virginia. Jeff had no choice but to come along. He sat sipping water and eating packets of saltines. “The next day we were woken up with a surprise physical fitness test,” he recounts. “Two minutes of push-ups, two minutes of sit-ups, and a two-mile run.

“I was never the best athlete, but everybody else was sick from eating that fried chicken. That morning I performed better than all of them.”

Although he did experience occasional moments of anti-Semitism in the military, the second-in-command at the JAG school was Colonel Schinasi, a proudly identified Jew whose wife taught in a day school. Having Schinasi on his side ensured that any anti-Semitic acts were promptly disciplined.

Jeff still considers it a neis that, upon completion of his military legal training, he found himself back at Fort Monmouth — conveniently close to Deal and Lakewood — working as command and counsel to the communications and electronics military intelligence unit based there. The base had a good relationship with the office of the United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey, and Jeff soon found himself responsible for federal cases in Newark. “Usually you have to join a big law firm and wait three to five years before you can prosecute federal law cases,” Jeff points out. “Now I was getting trial experience in Newark and Trenton, dealing with cases alleging fraud against the government.”

After merely two years, he was promoted to captain and made Chief of the Military Law Branch there. He chalks up his unbelievably fast rise to his steadfast adherence to Judaism during his service. “Yosef is my Hebrew name, and I’d always remember how Yosef would see his father’s face in front of him and resist temptation,” he says. “I often found that even older people would approach me for advice; I was the only Orthodox Jew around, and they sensed we have a higher level of counsel.”

In 1997, he received a call from a lawyer in Washington DC, who was looking for a young lawyer for a Department of Justice position. This led to him accepting a position with Paul Hastings, a national white-collar law group. Jeff moved his family to Silver Spring, and his military background served him well as he began dealing with criminal and civil fraud and contract cases. “I was familiar with all the government acronyms already,” he says.

Soon enough, Jeff was hired away from Paul Hastings to Greenberg Traurig LLP, a large international firm, to head their white-collar crime group in DC. By then he had moved his family to Baltimore so that his son could attend Ner Israel Rabbinical College. Jeff was doing well, but was increasingly uncomfortable with the fact that he was unable to take on cases from many Orthodox clients who approached him — they were unable to pay the high corporate rates. “I could be somewhat helpful, but I had constraints,” he says. Finally in 2009, he took a leap of faith, and established his own firm. “I had acquired a healthy stable of clients, people who felt more loyalty to me than my firm. Even if it was less well paid, it was more rewarding,” he says.

Within a year, his fledgling practice had grown to six lawyers, and had doubled by 2012. Ifrah Law now deals with many online business and gaming issues, health care, and pharmaceutical suits.

In 2002 Jeff coauthored a manual, with Kirby D. Behre, entitled Federal Sentencing for Business Crimes, a guide to sentencing for white-collar crimes. “Those guidelines are no longer mandatory, but research has shown that for the most part judges still follow them,” he says. The book took him four years to write, and is updated every year.

AIfrah e-mailed Mishpacha photos that produce an instant, reflexive cringe: bearded men with peyos and frock coats being led away in police custody. Ifrah then followed up with a press release dated February 10, hot off the presses of the New York County district attorney’s office. This unsavory news tidbit announces the arrests and charges of 16 city employees and about 34 property managers, contractors, and expeditors accused of bribery and housing fraud. Some of the alleged crimes occurred in Jewish neighborhoods, and an embarrassing number of names could only belong to someone from an Orthodox background.

“I’m telling you, this year promises to be worse than last,” sighs Ifrah, who shows up for our interview at Manhattan’s Cozens O’Conner office fresh and voluble despite recent travels. “In 2014, there were 120 state felony offenses involving Orthodox Jews — at least, offenses that I know about.”

Ifrah would know, because he has dedicated the past eight years of his 25-year practice to defending frum Jews who run afoul of the law. Currently involved with 33 cases in 17 states, none of his clients have been charged with “drugs, guns, and vice” violations — that’s not his domain. Instead, his clients stand accused of white-collar crimes: fraud, embezzlement, international trade, or Internet violations — crimes that, once convicted, are rarely repeated. “When I first started going to court in Newark in 1997, you never saw a defendant in a yarmulke,” he says. “Last year I had to go meet a frum client there, so I figured I’d recognize him by his yarmulke. Well, when I got off the elevator, the floor had four rooms — and in each room there was a man wearing a yarmulke.”

Jewish Prisoner Services International isn’t exactly sure how many Jews are incarcerated (the government doesn’t keep statistics on inmates’ religion) but the organization is in touch with about 5,500 Jewish-identified inmates. As of 2012, there were 4,127 individuals receiving a “certified religious diet” in federal prisons, out of some 217,000 inmates (about 2 percent).

Genial and upbeat by nature, Mr. Ifrah is nevertheless horrified by the chillul Hashem created by such incidents. But his work with clients has given him a broad perspective on why this seems to be occurring more and more — and what frum Jews need to know and do in order to avoid public disgrace or, even more appalling, exchanging a black jacket for an orange jumpsuit.

When it comes to sentencing for white-collar crimes, he notes that New York is actually one of the most lenient states because such crimes are so common — in Manhattan, it’s not unusual to see crimes involving tens of millions of dollars in insider trading and securities fraud, to name just two offenses. Other states, unaccustomed to these kinds of suits, tend to sentence more harshly. “When Shalom Rubashkin was tried, the amounts of money involved were unprecedented in Iowa,” he says. “But the judges didn’t seek to compare his case to similar cases in other states, and therefore sentenced him much more heavily.” He has since written a pro bono brief in the United States Supreme Court on behalf of Rubashkin, arguing that the severity of the sentencing was disproportionate compared to similar cases elsewhere. [The Court refused to hear the case and denied review of the appeal.]

Jewish business people are increasingly entering new fields like health care, Internet commerce, and education, fields highly subject to scrutiny. As Ifrah puts it: “We are now playing in highly regulated sandboxes.”

Ifrah largely regards his frum clients not as traitors to the tribe, but people who made mistakes. “My job is not to be judge or jury. It’s to defend my clients. I never think of them as ‘the guilty ones’ versus ‘the innocent ones.’ ” (Clients themselves typically regard themselves as “victims of government overreach.”) But the problem, as he sees it, is that Jews sometimes ignore or fail to comply with government regulations — at their own risk. “Health care, education, trade, Internet commerce, finance — all of these require strict compliance to the law, and will be right in the line of fire,” he states.

He describes a typical risky scenario: “Often people launch a business as a start-up, not sure if it will even get off the ground. It’s expensive and time consuming to comply with every government regulation, so they put it aside at first, thinking they first have to see if the business can even succeed.”

If things go well, the business owners tend to become very busy with the growth of their company, often too busy to think about those pesky regulations again. Compliance again gets put on the back burner. As more and more time goes by, with compliance still relegated to the bottom of the to-do list, a lax attitude toward compliance becomes a part of the corporate culture.

Ifrah admits that some individuals may not understand English well enough to wade through a sea of regulations that would cause a native speaker’s eyes to glaze over. Others originate from countries where the government is notoriously corrupt or capricious, and the modus operandi for everyone has traditionally been to work around the government instead of complying with it. There are places where bribery is the only way to deal with government, or where anti-Semitism has historically prohibited Jews from going through normal channels.

Then there are those who simply see government restrictions as illogical and not consumer friendly. “Take pharmaceuticals,” Ifrah proposes. “In the US, the Food and Drug Administration regulates them for public safety. Because we have this oversight, many medicines are more expensive in the US. If Pfizer manufactures a product in South America more cheaply, it’s against the law to import it to the US. There are some Orthodox Jews playing in this area who are low-lying fruit for federal prosecutors — they’re easy to convict, and have lots of money in the bank.”

Ifrah was involved with a case in which yeshivah bochurim were recruited to pick up shipments of illegal pharmaceuticals from UPS and repackage and relabel them for shipping elsewhere. “This is not the type of work anyone should be doing for extra parnassah,” he says. “They were getting $1,000 a month for their participation, so they weren’t looking too closely into what the business was about. But the feds may not take your professed ignorance as an excuse. They’ll say, ‘How could you have not known these activities were improper?’ ”

Health-care fraud, such as false reimbursement claims and “up-coding” (billing for a more expensive procedure or medicine when a cheaper one was used) are also common, but can carry millions of dollars in penalties as well as years of jail time. Furthermore, it’s not just the CEO who will be charged; employees who are complicit in such practices may also be indicted, and asked, “How could you have not known the company was billing illegally?”

Ifrah warns that anyone dealing with federal agents should do so with a lawyer, and make sure he has his story straight. Anything said in e-mail is a fertile resource for agents; even statements like, “Let’s not discuss this through e-mail,” may be interpreted as an attempt to cover one’s tracks.

On the other hand, statements made publicly that support law-abiding behavior help cultivate a reputation for integrity. One of the biggest mistakes a business owner can make is to allow employees and friends to believe they are comfortable crossing the line — jokes, comments, slipups. Instead, the owner should become known as the person who would never tolerate noncompliance, not someone who would do anything to make an extra dollar.

He cautions that choosing a lawyer is a business decision that should be made with the same astute, critical judgment one would bring to any other deal. Some new clients feel the legal process to be cloaked in such mystery that, as Ifrah puts it, “they check their brains at the door.” He tries to break down the mystery of the process for clients, and considers it key for the client-attorney relationship.

“If your lawyer can’t answer every single one of your questions, or if he seems to be withholding information, you may want to go elsewhere,” he warns. “The process is too expensive and risky.” In the same way patients now research their own doctors and cures, and participate in their treatment plans, he advises clients to take an active role in the selection of representation and their own cases. “The client sometimes produces facts that are critical to the defense of the case,” he avers.

As one might expect, becoming the lawyer for a frum client usually means he develops a close relationship to both the client and his family. “I’m a very relationship-oriented person,” Jeff says. “I act as social worker, rabbi, lawyer, supporter, and friend. I fight for them and hold them up.” But he tries not to bring the cares of the office home with him; when he spends Shabbos at home after one of his 100-hour weeks, all he wants to do is play with the younger children, learn with his boys, and go to shul.

As the saying goes, just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you. The FBI now has field offices just outside Lakewood, and in Brooklyn and Rockland County, and they do monitor our communities. But this is not, Ifrah says, because they have specifically chosen to put Jews in the crosshairs. “Most federal agents are fine, upstanding people who are simply doing their jobs,” he says.

He has been trying in recent years to convince Agudath Israel and other Jewish organizations to publicize the issue of legal and regulatory compliance so the problem doesn’t continue to metastasize. “If Jews aren’t aware, they will continue to make bad decisions,” he says. “Any Jewish misconduct reflects terribly on both our community and Hashem’s Name.

“Embarrassment is good — we should be embarrassed,” he continues. “We absolutely don’t want this to become normative in our community. We have to work on improving our reputation.

“When we fail, it’s Hashem’s Crown we’re tarnishing.”

How to Create an Environment of Compliance

1. Do not make comments that imply you treat compliance with the law lightly. For instance, if an employee says that advertising claims should be substantiated, don’t say “but no one does that.”
2. Don’t poke fun at compliance obligations. If a competitor quips that “everyone has to cut corners somewhere,” don’t say “compliance only hurts the one who has to pay for it!”
3. If anyone raises compliance concerns — including a competitor, a regulator, or an employee — respond with care, concern, and action. Your attitude and response make a difference to regulators.
4. Foster a culture of open communication around compliance with the law. If a concern is raised, publicly explain how you addressed it; if you take no action, explain that too.
5. Your reputation, words, and actions are important. Be known as the person who would never tolerate noncompliance, not someone who would do anything to make a buck.

When the FBI Comes to Call

Ifrah warns that many otherwise bright, educated, and sometimes innocent people get themselves into hotter water than necessary because they don’t know how to react when a federal agent knocks on the door. “Agents often show up at five or six in the morning; for some reason, it’s often the man of the house who answers and lets them in,” he says, noting as an aside, “Women are better at refusing to open the door — maybe they have a better sense of self-protection.”

Most people, he notes, are not in the best position to answer probing questions about their business or their colleagues in their pajamas. Anything you tell the agents can and will be used against you, and if you later contradict something you told them in your pre-caffeinated state of mind, you may be accused of lying. (Agents typically come in pairs, one to talk and the other to take notes.) They may cajole: “Let’s just see if we can straighten this out.”  At times, they may even ask to come in under false pretenses.

“Just don’t let them in!” Ifrah stresses. “You have no obligation to let them into your house, and nothing will happen if you don’t. Do not ask the purpose of their visit — it may lead to a conversation you don’t want to have. Take their business card or phone number, and tell them respectfully you will meet with them later, along with your lawyer.”

The same advice applies even if the agents say they only want to ask questions about a neighbor or friend. Many people who reflexively try to cover up for a friend or family member later find themselves prosecuted for lying. “In these situations,” he warns, “you can’t afford to make mistakes. The stakes — and the sentencing — are too high.”

Chaim R.* remembers the knock. In his case it was gambling, but he says prosecutors managed to inflate two counts of gambling and related charging into money laundering and extortion. “I had a friend who was in trouble, and I paid his debts for him, and they turned that into ‘extortion,’ ” he says. “It turned into a high-profile case in which 30 people were indicted and millions of dollars were involved.”

He found himself under house arrest while the case dragged on for a year; the most painful part was the stress it created for his wife and children. The only silver lining was the moments of special closeness he was able to enjoy with his family as they weathered the ordeal together. “You realize what brachos you have, and how easily you could lose them,” he says. “It was very humbling.

“The fact that I was married with children helped,” he adds. “If I’d been 18 they might have really taken sentencing all the way.”

His sentencing was scheduled for April, but that Rosh Hashanah his friends and family showered him with brachos for a good outcome. He told them, “The only difference between you and me is that I have an open issue that everybody knows about. Other people have issues too — we just don’t see them. It’s all up to Hashem.”

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 555)