Jun.20, 2010, Source: Bloomberg

A New Jersey rabbi pleaded guilty to conspiring to launder $1.5 million in a U.S. corruption crackdown that led to charges against 44 people last July.

Eliahu Ben Haim, once the principal rabbi of Congregation Ohel Yaacob in Deal, New Jersey, today admitted that he used religious charities to engage in 35 money-laundering transactions with a cooperating witness. He converted $1.5 million in checks into $1.35 million in cash, keeping $150,000 in fees, according to a charge he admitted in federal court in Trenton, New Jersey.

Ben Haim, who faces as many as 20 years in prison, remains under house arrest on $1.5 million bail, with a global positioning system to track him, according to a statement by U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman. He agreed to forfeit $1.5 million, including $630,525 seized last July 23.

Ben Haim isn’t cooperating with prosecutors, his attorney, Lawrence Lustberg, said in an interview. Lustberg declined to comment further.

Twenty people have been convicted after a sting by the Federal Bureau of Investigation netted public officials, five rabbis and a man accused of illegally dealing a human kidney. Those convicted include a former state assemblyman and two people not originally charged last July.