COURIER L 12 IFE, NOVEMBER 5-11, 2021
Deutsch’s prison
sentence pushed back
three weeks after jab
BY BEN BRACHFELD
Former councilmember and soonto
be federal inmate Chaim Deutsch has
been given an additional three weeks
of liberty, so his newly administered
COVID-19 vaccine can take full effect.
The Manhattan federal judge handling
the disgraced pol’s case, James
Cott, granted a request by Deutsch’s attorney
Henry Mazurek to move the date
he is required to surrender to federal
custody from Oct. 29 to Nov. 19, after
Deutsch decided at the last minute to receive
a Johnson & Johnson single-dose
shot, as fi rst reported by the New York
Post.
Mazurek noted in court fi lings that
Deutsch had up until now refused the
jab for “personal reasons,” but he had
a change of heart in recent weeks after
realizing he would soon be doing time
in a congregate prison setting where
COVID can, and has been proven to,
spread like wildfi re.
“After much refl ection and consultation
with medical, religious, and
personal advisers, Mr. Deutsch has
decided to receive a COVID-19 vaccine
before reporting to the Federal
Bureau of Prisons facility,” Mazurek
said in an Oct. 26 letter to Judge Cott
reviewed by Brooklyn Paper. “This
was a carefully considered decision
by Mr. Deutsch and not one that came
easy to him. In the end, however, the
serious risks to his health that he confronted
by going into a crowded and
confi ned prison setting, and the urgings
of his family and counsel, led him
to reverse course.”
Mazurek requested Deutsch be
given until Nov. 19 so that the J&J dose
could have 14 days to take full effect,
citing BOP’s own policy on its effectiveness.
Judge Cott granted the extension
the same day Mazurek sent the letter.
Had it not been granted, Deutsch would
have been placed in an “isolation cell”
for at least two weeks to quarantine before
entering general population. The
attorney noted that this requirement is
no longer in effect for fully vaxxed inmates
entering federal custody.
Deutsch, who represented south
Brooklyn’s 48th District in the City
Council from 2014 until earlier this
year, was convicted in July on federal
tax fraud charges. He pled guilty in
April, admitting to defrauding the government
of nearly $83,000 he owed between
2013 and 2015 as the owner of the
real estate fi rm Chasa Management.
In sentencing Deutsch, Judge Cott
said that the pol’s position of public
trust exacerbated the offenses he had
committed.
“Mr. Deutsch was not paying his
fair share of taxes to fund the very
government services he was helping to
Councilmember Chaim Deutsch will soon
serve a federal sentence for tax fraud.
File photo
oversee as a member of the City Council,”
he said during Deutsch’s July 29
sentencing hearing.
“I do believe, given all the circumstances
here, that a period of incarceration
is necessary,” the judge noted
in handing down a sentence of three
months imprisonment, a year of supervised
release, $107,000 in restitution,
and a $5,500 fi ne. “To decide otherwise
would send the wrong message.
There is a real fi nancial loss to the government
in this case. A public offi cial
who knowingly fi led false tax returns
for three years must go to jail.”
Mazurek noted in the Oct. 26 letter
that Deutsch, an Orthodox Jew, had
been assigned to Federal Correctional
Institution, Otisville, a federal lockup
in upstate Orange County which the attorney
had requested Deutsch be sent
to, and which Cott agreed to recommend,
though the determination was
ultimately up to the Bureau of Prisons.
Otisville is known as a prison of choice
for Jewish federal convictees; it boasts a
rabbi as a chaplain and hosts an annual
Passover seder in the prison cafeteria.
Deutsch was expelled from the
Council soon after pleading guilty,
and the district, which includes Sheepshead
Bay, Brighton Beach, Manhattan
Beach, Midwood, and Homecrest,
has been without representation ever
since. Deutsch’s staff was fi red or reassigned
elsewhere in the Council soon
after, replaced by Council central offi
ce staff. Residents said the fi ring led
to diminished constituent services,
which had previously been a hallmark
of Deutsch’s tenure.
On Election Day, Republican candidate
Inna Vernikob bested Democratic
opponent Steve Saperstein in the competitive
race to replace Deutsch, and
will take offi ce immediately.
Deutsch could not be reached for
comment.
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