Coke-snorting millionaire Rabbi who built 'synagogue of sin' walks free from court

A rabbi who lived a double life as a cocaine-addicted playboy walked free from court yesterday.

Multi-millionaire Baruch Chalomish, 54, hosted sex and drugs orgies at his luxury apartment.

One party hosted by the eminent Jewish scholar was attended by 20 guests and went on for five days. During that time the rabbi stayed up for over 72 hours repeatedly snorting cocaine and having sex with high-class prostitutes.

At other riotous parties call girls were laid on for wealthy friends including a hospital surgeon, a GP and several businessmen.

Secret sinner: Baruch Chalomish, who enjoyed cocaine-fuelled parties with prostitutes, was given a community order today

But today Chalomish was spared jail after a court heard he had thrown himself into a life of sex and drugs following his wife’s death. Manchester Crown Court was told the rabbi had been a leading and well-respected member of the local Jewish community.

The father of three preached on moral behaviour to children at schools of religious study, and would often put large sums of money through the letterboxes of the poor.

Each year he donated £70,000 pounds to a welfare fund to help poor Jewish people locally. But his double life was exposed in January when police raided his apartment and found large sums of money and cocaine, and credit cards and banknotes used for chopping up and snorting the drug.

Similar paraphernalia and quantities of cocaine were found at Chalomish’s home, along with £15,345 in cash.

Chalomish, who came to Britain from Israel 30 years ago, sobbed as he told the jury he was ‘deeply ashamed’ of taking cocaine and did it only to stop feeling depressed and lonely after his wife’s sudden death from liver cancer in 1996.

He later remarried but the relationship ended just six weeks after the wedding.

Jonathan Goldberg QC, defending said: ‘He had a secret life since the death of his wife whom he had been devoted to for 18 years. He became an addict because he never got over the pain of her death.

'My client is a very wealthy man, a property investor. He is literally a multi-millionaire. He has no need to make money from supplying drugs.

'He never supplied or sold drugs, but he was using and indeed he had a habit, a habit that sometimes he was spending £1,000 pounds a week on for himself.’

The jury cleared Chalomish of two counts of drug dealing but found his co-accused Nasir Abbas, 54, who is on the run, guilty of possession and supply and jailed him in his absence for six years.

Mr Goldberg said of Chalomish: ‘A rich man such as he is knew that he could afford to buy the best and Mr Abbas got him the best. He got him very, very pure cocaine. His secret life was that he was using prostitutes, and Mr Abbas was arranging them for him. He has needs, as a man does since his wife died, and he was indulging in that.’

Chalomish was convicted of possessing class-A drugs and given a six-month supervision order and 60 days community work. He was ordered to undergo drug rehabilitation and to pay £3,899.22 costs.

Sentencing him, Judge Michael Henshall said: ‘Your secret life, which has now been exposed to the glare of publicity, has brought upon you a degree of recrimination from members of the community and the wider public.’