A rabbi who enjoyed cocaine-fuelled parties with escort girls has been cleared of drug dealing. Rabbi Baruch Chalomish, 55, who has a £7 million fortune, held his head in his hands and wiped away tears as the verdict was announced at Manchester Crown Court.
He said that he developed an addiction for cocaine and a taste for prostitutes after his wife, Freda, died, but insisted that he had never been a dealer. As he left the court, Chalomish said that he hoped his case would serve as an example to others about the dangers of drugs.
Chalomish, born in Israel, was a respected Jewish academic and scholar, but when his wife died of liver cancer in 1996 he stopped looking after himself, and instead lived in squalor at his home in Prestwich, in the heart of Manchester’s Orthodox Jewish community.
At the same time as he was building his fortune through property speculation and market dealing, the father of three was developing a £1,000-a-week cocaine addiction and enjoying parties with escort girls.
His passport to this world was Nasir Abbas, 54, a fixer who supplied the “best cocaine in town” and had the Pure Class escort agency in his contacts book. The court was told of parties that attracted some of Manchester’s elite, including surgeons, GPs and other professional people. The rabbi admitted that he had been one of Abbas’s best customers.
When the police raided a luxury flat in Manchester’s northern quarter over the new year holidays, they discovered Chalomish and Abbas sleeping off a ten-day marathon of drugs and paid-for sex. There had been a stream of girls through the flat but, the court was told, only “Emma of Stockport” was allowed into the rabbi’s bedroom. She stayed for seven days, earning hundreds of pounds.
Abbas told police that the benefactor he called “Shel” liked to offer cocaine in bowls to “impress the girls”. At one point, Abbas grew so alarmed with the rabbi’s non-stop partying that he left him to sleep off his excesses and rang the agency to cancel that day’s supply of girls. The police discovered almost as much cocaine and drug paraphernalia at the rabbi’s home as they did at the flat, along with large amounts of cash.
Chalomish told the jury that he was deeply ashamed of his behaviour. Jonathan Goldberg, QC, his counsel, told the jury: “He had a secret life after the death of his wife, whom he had been devoted to for 18 years. She died of cancer very suddenly in 1996 and he became an addict because he never got over the pain of her death. First he became an alcoholic. When that gave him no relief in recent years he turned to cocaine.”
Mr Goldberg added: “His secret life was that he was using prostitutes, and Mr Abbas was arranging them for him. Shameful though his behaviour has been, it was brought about by depression and bereavement. He is a broken man in many ways. This is a genuine tragedy.”
Chalomish had pleaded guilty to two counts of possession of cocaine but was cleared after a week-long trial of two more serious charges of possession with intent to supply. Abbas, a convicted drug dealer, who did not attend his own trial, was convicted of intent to supply and jailed for six years in his absence. He is now regarded as being on the run.
Judge Michael Henshell, who has already described Chalomish’s behaviour as scandalous, said that the rabbi would be sentenced at a later date so that reports could be prepared.
He indicated that he had a community penalty in mind after hearing suggestions from counsel that members of the rabbi’s community would help him to get rehabilitation for his drug and alcohol use. The judge said: “It was an extraordinary case and outside my own experience dealing with a man who is so eminent within his community. I am sure you could not have failed to be moved by the facts you have heard.”
Mr Goldberg said after the trial: “My client is too emotional to speak but he is grateful to the jury for their verdicts vindicating that he was only a cocaine user and never a supplier.
“He now hopes the shame and degradation he has suffered will serve as an example to others to shun drugs.”
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