A fraudster who once posed as a billionaire rabbi and tried to buy Lord & Taylor out of bankruptcy was sentenced on Monday to more than eight years in prison, according to a report.
The swindler, who claimed to be rabbi “Clifford Ari Getz” — an astrologer and owner of a family investment firm in Beverly Hills — was sentenced to eight and a half years in prison after defrauding a close friend and a widow with four children out of $3.8 million, according to a Bloomberg report.
His real name is Russell Dwayne Lewis and he graduated from high school in Texas, but he claimed to have grown up in London and earned a Ph.D. in theoretical mathematics and master’s degrees in neurophysics, genetics and quantum physics, according to the report.
As he appeared for sentencing in the US Southern District of New York on Monday, Lewis read a statement that his lawyer’s also submitted in writing as his jaw was wired shut. Lewis had a “fall” while incarcerated and was “badly injured,” according to his attorney, Julie Rendelman.
“In my heart I say no one deserves a second chance in life,” Lewis said. “But I believe I can earn a second chance and that is what I will work towards. I will continue to work on myself so I may earn my place someday back in society. I sincerely apologize to everyone I have hurt.”
Lewis had also claimed to be a rabbi and along the way he passed himself off as a businessman and bidder for Lord & Taylor, the nearly 200 year-old department store which had filed for bankruptcy protection in August 2020.
Then owned by Le Tote, a clothing-rental company that bought Lord & Taylor in 2019 from Saks Fifth Avenue owner Hudson’s Bay in a $100 million deal, Lewis began negotiating with Le Tote’s advisors and submitted a bid.
The retailer and its advisors spent much of August doing due diligence on Lewis, who sent them a forged letter from a foreign bank claiming that it held hundreds of millions of euros belonging to him, according to the report.
Lord & Taylor’s reps “wasted thousands of dollars and weeks of time evaluating the proposed deal,” New York prosecutors in US District court said according to the report.
While Lewis didn’t plead guilty to the Lord & Taylor scheme, he struck a plea deal for his misdeeds involving the individuals he scammed, agreeing to give up $3.8 million he stole from them.
Prosecutors said he stole the identity of a man named Clifford Getz and used the Social Security number of a 13-year-old boy in Ohio as well as forged a passport, according to the report.
His lies included claiming a net worth of as much as $30 billion and being a former CIA operative.
He also said he was tapped to help pick the jury for the 1995 O.J. Simpson trial because of his knowledge of astrology, according to the report.
The defrauded widow had come to him for his astrological expertise, prosecutors said.
“I know that you know the difference between right and wrong,” US District Judge Laura Taylor Swain said Monday at his sentencing hearing, according to Bloomberg. “Lying, stealing, cheating are wrong, and you’re paying a heavy price for that.”
An attorney for Lewis couldn’t immediately be reached.