A basketball coach at a Jewish private school in Pennsylvania has been fired from his job after admitting in open court that he had a side job as a drug dealer. Lesson learned: don’t deal drugs if you want to also teach in a Hebrew school.
Robert Kushner was dismissed from his position with the Jack M. Barrack Hebrew Academy in Bryn Mawr.
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Head of School Sharon Levin told Mainline Media News, “This is the first we have known anything about this. At the end of the basketball season he was no longer employed and obviously he will not be, going forward.”
According to a somewhat humorous report in the Philadelphia Inquirer, the now former coach was forced to confess to having sold drugs when testifying in a federal trial of 6 Philadelphia police officers who were charged with various acts of corruption.
Thomas Liciardello, Brian Reynolds, Michael Spicer, Perry Betts, Linwood Norman and John Speiser, have been charged with stealing more than $500, 000 in cash, jewelry and electronics from drug dealers over a six year period. The Federal prosecutors have jurisdiction under federal laws that were passed to clamp down on local corruptions in America.
It seems that the police officers in question had simply stolen Mr. Kushner’s drugs rather than arrest him. This is what anyone who ever watches Law and Order knows is called a “shakedown” by the cops. Kushner testified that cops stole $81, 000 and seven pounds of marijuana from him in 2007.
Poor Mr. Kushner. Talk about blaming the victim. He was robbed and then lost his legit job because of it.
But the Hebrew school says that it had no idea that Mr. Kushner had a criminal record before it hired him. Local authorities stated that they do not share such information with schools.
Mr. Kushner said, “All of the stuff that happened in 2007, that was eight years ago and was a bad phase of my life that I’ve moved past and never really looked back. I’m very sorry, and I want the best for the kids.”
