Jacob the Jeweler Gets 30-Month Prison Sentence
June 25, 08
Jeweler to the stars Jacob Arabov, better known as ‘Jacob the Jeweler,’ was sentenced Tuesday to two and a half years in federal prison. Arabov, 43, was convicted of lying to investigators who were gathering information on a large-scale drug operation.
Last October as part of a plea bargain, the jeweler pleaded guilty to falsifying records and giving false statements. The federal prosecutors with whom he made the deal requested from U.S. District Judge Avern Cohn that a minimum sentence of three years and one month be imposed on Arabov.
But Cohn, who took into account Arabov’s past charity work, shortened that sentence and ordered him to pay a fine of $50,000 and a forfeiture payment of $2 million to the government.
Arabov was arrested in 2006 in Manhattan under accusations that he had conspired with others to launder drug profits of about $270 million for the “Black Mafia Family.”
In the course of the seven-year investigation, 41 people, including Arabov, were arrested, according to federal authorities.
"I feel ashamed that I broke the laws of this country, a country that has been so good for me," said Arabov, who is an immigrant from the former