The arrests of a Lakewood rabbi, his wife, and several others Monday is just the "first wave" of a federal and state crackdown on public assistance fraud in the Orthodox community.

The second wave is planned for as early as dawn Wednesday when authorities are scheduled to move in on three other couples, according to law enforcement sources. After that, warrants will be served to an unknown number of others by Friday and the investigation is continuing. And growing.

"There are more (arrests) coming," the source said, who was not authorized to speak on the record. "This is far from over."

It may be just the beginning. There is a new scrutiny on Lakewood as the town continues to make headlines. Money-laundering indictments, a school system in financial freefall, unabated development. And now welfare fraud charges.

MORE: Recent Mark Di Ionno columns

The charges against those scheduled to be arrested Wednesday and later in the week, will be similar to those filed Monday. The complaints say they systematically schemed to steal hundreds of thousands of dollars in federal benefits designed for the poor, some during a period as long as five years.

"We are sending a message to this community that the party is over," the law enforcement source said.

"The party," the source refers to are allegations that Orthodox Jews bilk the public assistance systems.

That accusation repeatedly shows up in the comment fields on recent columns here designed to separate perception from reality.

Certainly, the charges against Rabbi Zalmen Sorotzkin and his wife, Tzipporah, feed those allegations. The couple is charged with stealing $338,642 from Medicaid, Social Security, and food and housing benefits designed for the poor while living a luxurious lifestyle. Sorotzkin's home is a mansion at the end of a cul-de-sac valued at $885,000 and owned by Congregation Lutzk.

According to the Lakewood tax assessor's office, the Sorotzkin's home was tax-exempt as a religious property.

The home of Mordechai and Jocheved Breskin, also arrested Monday is valued at $577,000. They were accused of stealing $585,862 in public assistance.

A third arrested couple, Yocheved and Shimon Nussbaum, live in a home valued at $450,000. The complaint says the Nussbaums earned $1.8 million in 2013, but still took $178,000 in benefits.

Mordechai Sorotzkin, the rabbi's brother, and his wife, Rachel Sorotzkin, were charged with taking $96,000 in Medicaid benefits from 2011 to 2014, despite earning a combined $1 million in 2012 and 2013.

The three couples scheduled to be arrested tomorrow live in homes valued between $627,000 and $450,000. All three are on the tax rolls, with two couples paying about $10,500 in property taxes and the third paying $7,487.

One couple will be charged with stealing about $330,000 in entitlements from Medicaid and Social Security, Housing and Urban Development funds, and SNAP benefits. SNAP is the federal government's Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, once called food stamps.

The other two couples will be charged with stealing about $100,000 in benefits.

These arrests are the latest in a series of arrests that paint an unflattering picture of the Orthodox community in Lakewood. Not all. But some.

And it leads to questions about why there is so much poverty in a township where money is flowing.

For instance, 75 percent of the homes in Lakewood sell for between $400,000 and $1 million, yet the official poverty rate is 38 percent and the per capita income is $11,775. By contrast, neighboring Brick Township has a poverty level of 6.1 percent and a per capita income $34,840.

Home building goes on unabated in a township that has seen its population double to 100,000 in 20 years. In 2016, all the properties in the township had a total assessed value of $6.5 billion. In 2017, that rose to $9.5 billion on the strength of construction of 600 new houses and 20 new commercial developments. And yet, the 6,000-student public school system remains broke.

The cost of transporting 30,000 private school students in gender-specific buses to a multitude of Orthodox schools consumes the bulk of the public school's $24.5 million transportation budget.

The district sends 346 special education students to "out-of-district" schools, including 193 to the School for Children with Hidden Intelligence (SCHI), which charges tuitions in the $100,000-range. SCHI's owner and founder, Rabbi Osher Eisemann, was indicted in March by the state attorney general's office on charges of transferring $630,000 of publicly-paid tuition funds into SCHI's foundation accounts and using the money for personal investments and expenses.

Eisemann was the second high-profile Lakewood case this year. In February, beeper store owner Yisroel Malamud pleaded guilty to running an unlicensed money transfer business, laundering $3.5 million in cash through his own accounts from his customers to third parties.

A second law enforcement official who asked not to be identified said there are connections between the Malamud money transfers and the breaking cases of welfare fraud, in that some of the money that went through Malamud's accounts came from the new defendants.

Meanwhile, federal money pours in. The township received $28,642,612 in federal housing subsidies last year.

Another $10,837,810 in Pell grants were given to students in six yeshivas, the largest being Beth Medrash Govoha. The yeshivas' 6,500 students received $10,208,627 in Pell grants. The yeshiva also received a $75,000 Homeland Security grant.

The Lakewood office for the state-run and federally-funded WIC (Women, Infant and Children) program for poor pregnant or breastfeeding women and children under 5 is one of the busiest in the state. Ocean County - with its huge population of retirees - has the fourth largest WIC program in the state.

These are the numbers and the contradictions that go with them. Things in Lakewood sometimes just don't add up. And there is surely more evidence to come.

Mark Di Ionno may be reached at mdiionno@starledger.com. Follow The Star-Ledger on Twitter @StarLedger and find us on Facebook.