How to Scam Like a Celebrity
May 01, 2025 at 03:30PM
Miranda Green | The Atavist Magazine | April 2025 | 1,687 words (7 minutes)
This is an excerpt from issue no. 162, “All That Glitters.”
It was like something out of a fairy tale—or the Los Angeles society pages. As a crowd of celebrities and reality-show cast members mingled near displays of diamond jewelry at the five-star Hotel Bel-Air, Beverly Hills plastic surgeon Ben Talei got down on one knee to propose to his girlfriend. “Congratulations!” a bewildered Kim Kardashian said to the couple. Then she looked at the stone. “Come on, now’s your time,” she joked about the ring. “You want it thicker.”
The November 2019 scene, caught on phone cam and later shared with the New York Post, was exactly the kind of spectacle the event’s organizer, Jona Rechnitz, must have hoped for. Rechnitz, the proprietor of a jewelry firm called Jadelle, had put together that evening’s Holiday Diamond Showcase to celebrate his business. Smiling wide, Rechnitz mingled easily with the attendees. Faye Resnick of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills was there, as was Kris Jenner—the event’s official host. Yet Rechnitz didn’t stray far from Kardashian, who graciously accepted requests for selfies throughout the night.
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Six-foot-four and 300 pounds, Rechnitz cut an imposing figure, but his dimpled cheeks and engaging eyes made him look younger than his 37 years. It was a face people tended to trust. His company’s profile was growing. That September, Kardashian had worn some of Jadelle’s bling to the Emmys. Jadelle recently announced a partnership with storied handbag brand Judith Leiber, and its jewelry had landed on the cover of Vogue Japan—huge accomplishments for a company that had existed for only two years.
The night was an opportunity to make big-ticket sales and to claim Jadelle’s spot as the go-to jewelry company for the city’s privileged class. Attendees tried on high-carat, multicolored diamond rings, necklaces, and earrings between hors d’oeuvres; a portion of the proceeds was promised to Toys for Tots. The party also marked a successful homecoming for Rechnitz, who had returned from New York to his native Los Angeles to launch Jadelle. His father was there, as were diamond dealers Rechnitz had worked with on both coasts. By all appearances, he was living his best life: he owned a Bugatti, rented an office at a premier Beverly Hills address, and paid $17,000 a month for the estate he lived in with his wife and six children.
Rechnitz’s return to the West Coast, however, was less a fresh start than an escape. In 2016, he had pled guilty in New York City to conspiracy to commit honest services wire fraud, meaning that he had attempted to bribe public officials. When he left New York, he told a judge that he hoped to put his past behind him, to become a better man. Jadelle was his vehicle for doing so, and Los Angeles’s celebrity culture was the fuel, Rechnitz told the judge, that he needed to power his rebirth.
But shortly after the Holiday Diamond Showcase, much about Jadelle’s success would come into question; even the marriage proposal was later revealed to be a stunt. Within months, Rechnitz faced multiple lawsuits for fraud and theft, allegations that he’d taken out multimillion-dollar loans using stolen property as collateral, and accusations that he’d leveraged his celebrity connections to create a false impression of credibility.
Yet, despite a decade of legal troubles, Rechnitz to date has escaped serious consequences. He has yet to spend a single day in prison, even for the New York conviction. In reporting this story, I reviewed thousands of pages of legal documents and spoke to 15 associates, former friends, and lawyers involved in more than a dozen lawsuits against Rechnitz. Many of them think Rechnitz avoided justice because he cooperated with federal authorities in New York, and may still be acting as a government informant—something Rechnitz himself is said to have claimed. Whatever the truth, nothing seems to stick to him.
Chapter 1
Rechnitz was born into an affluent Orthodox Jewish family with roots in California. He attended Yavneh Hebrew Academy, a prestigious private school, and graduated from Yeshiva University Los Angeles High School, in the same class as conservative pundit Ben Shapiro. Rechnitz’s father, Robert, worked as a real estate developer, served as the national finance cochair for Republican senator Lindsey Graham’s 2016 presidential campaign, and was active in American Friends of Likud, a not-for-profit outfit that promotes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s political party through educational programs. After attending New York’s Yeshiva University, Rechnitz married his girlfriend, Rachel, and followed his dad into real estate. By 2007, he had a job at the U.S. branch of international development firm Africa Israel Investments, owned by Israeli billionaire diamond magnate Lev Leviev. He eventually rose to become the company’s director of acquisitions.
While at Africa Israel Investments, Rechnitz noticed that a client of his had a car with plates marked “Sheriff,” which allowed him to park wherever he wanted—street cleaning, tow-away zones, and handicap signs be damned. The client offered to introduce him to the man who’d provided them, Jeremy Reichberg, an official liaison between the New York Police Department and Borough Park’s Orthodox Jewish community. As luck would have it, Reichberg would soon be hosting a benefit for the NYPD’s football team. Rechnitz spent $5,000 on a ticket to get into a room with the department’s top brass. According to later testimony by Rechnitz, he made an impression on Reichberg. His donation even netted him a plaque from the team.
“It made him look good, made me look good, and we started to become friends,” Rechnitz said in court, according to The New York Times. “I didn’t know many people that had connections with police, growing up in Los Angeles, and I thought this would be an awesome tool for me personally and for my business.” His time with Reichberg also scored him points professionally. When Rechnitz’s boss came into town on a business trip, Reichberg had the police escort Leviev from his private plane.
In 2011, on the verge of turning 30, Rechnitz decided to establish his own real estate firm. He named it JSR Capital, using his initials. Rechnitz rented an office in the heart of the midtown diamond district. It was at JSR that Rechnitz developed a taste for the high life. He’d later testify that he charged more than $1 million annually to his credit cards; one lawyer claimed Rechnitz’s receipts showed that he spent more on tickets to New York Knicks games than he did on his taxes.
Though his real estate company was considered a midlevel firm, Rechnitz spent liberally to forge connections at the police department. The first of many trips he helped finance occurred in February 2013, when he and Reichberg coughed up nearly $60,000 to charter a private jet to fly themselves and two police officials to the Super Bowl in Las Vegas. According to prosecutors, they also bankrolled the group’s stay at the MGM Grand, as well as a female escort who joined them on the plane wearing a sexy stewardess outfit provided by Reichberg. Once home, according to court documents, Rechnitz and Reichberg continued to send gifts to at least one of the officers. In August, they paid part of the hotel bill for that officer’s vacation with his family in Rome. A few months later, the pair bought him a $3,000 watch and paid $6,000 to install railings at his Staten Island home. They even showed up to his house at Christmas—two Hanukkah-celebrating Jews in elf costumes, delivering jewelry and a Nintendo.
It was around this time that Philip Banks III, the top Black official on the force, was promoted to the NYPD’s highest uniformed position, and requested that his protégé, Michael Harrington, move from Brooklyn South to work as his executive officer. It just so happened that Harrington was one of the officers who did favors for Reichberg, and he was happy to satisfy yet another request: introducing Rechnitz and Reichberg to Chief Banks. The three men began dining out twice a month. Rechnitz paid for meals at glitzy Kosher restaurants, and they bought Banks a ring that Rechnitz testified had belonged to Muhammad Ali.
In December 2013, Rechnitz and Reichberg decided to charter another private jet, this time to the Dominican Republic. The guest list included Banks and his longtime friend Norman Seabrook, who was president of the Correction Officers’ Benevolent Association (COBA), a union for New York City’s jail guards. During one especially debauched evening, Rechnitz testified, Seabrook admitted to wishing he’d been more financially successful—he was in crippling mortgage debt. What’s more, he’d recently lost his beloved dog. Distraught and inebriated, he opened up his shirt to show Rechnitz the tattoo of the animal on his chest. “You should be making money,” Rechnitz told him, according to testimony. Seabrook agreed. “It’s time Norman Seabrook got paid,” he responded.
Rechnitz soon connected Seabrook with an old family friend, Murray Huberfeld, founder of a hedge fund called Platinum Partners. Rechnitz’s grandfather and Huberfeld’s father grew up in Poland, and both had survived the Holocaust. Rechnitz had sold Huberfeld apartments on the Upper West Side, and he came to Huberfeld with a new business opportunity: Would Platinum Partners be interested in investments from Seabrook’s union? The only catch, Rechnitz told him, was that Seabrook would have to get a kickback.
Eventually, Seabrook directed $20 million of COBA’s money to the fund, according to court documents. To uphold his side of the deal, Rechnitz needed a way to pay Seabrook. Rechnitz decided he would pull $60,000 from his own savings, then make himself whole by sending fake invoices to Huberfeld for eight pairs of courtside Knicks tickets. He allegedly routed the ticket transaction through a business acquaintance of his, who was later charged for a Ponzi-style ticket-reselling scheme. Now he just needed to get Seabrook the cash. One day in December 2014, Rechnitz visited the Ferragamo store on Fifth Avenue. Emerging with a new men’s handbag, he stuffed $60,000 cash inside and walked a few blocks to an idling SUV where Seabrook was waiting. Little did the men know that law enforcement was watching everything—and the exchange of money would eventually take everyone down.
Everyone, that is, except Jona Rechnitz.
from Longreads https://longreads.com/2025/05/01/bribery-corruption-jadelle-jewelry/
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